Man of Few Words
by Its a Faaaaith
Summary: The Expanse left more scars on Major Hayes, ripping some old ones right open. After being informed Captain Archer wants the MACOs to stay on, he has to figure out how to continue working on his patchy relationship with Lt. Reed after he catches him in a compromising position - without even being sure be wants to remain onboard. Alcohol abuse. Connected to Pineapples
1. The Grey Area

An emergency in the armoury.

A boarding party.

He'd forgotten a training session.

The lieutenant wanted to speak to him about… something. Anything.

He'd promised the Captain he'd walk Porthos!

As Hayes sat there, trying to come up with a good enough excuse to leave a mandated counselling session, Dr. Phlox just smiled good naturedly at him and waited for him to answer the question. God, what had he done to himself?

"Twelve," Hayes finally answered. Short and clipped.

"Would that be considered young? For humans?" the doctor followed up, never losing that kindly smile. Hayes wanted to smack it off. Obviously twelve was young, what the hell kind of question was that?

"Yes, sir." He'd wanted to say something witty but had come up blank. Reed would have come up with something witty; everything out of that man's mouth was some sort of quip or witticism, there was a reason he was the Captain's favourite. Stupid, witty, funny, adorkable… _Reed_.

The doctor's smile widened slightly. "You can dispense with the formalities, Major. There's no need to call me 'sir' in here." 'Here' being a small room just off sick bay, offering some semblance of privacy. "No need to call me 'sir', at all really. I'm not a superior officer, after all."

"Way I was raised, it's a sign of respect."

"And where was that?"

"Camp Pendleton, California."

"Ah, Camp Pendleton," Phlox said, fondly. "I spent a few months in the dermatology department in the base hospital. Wonderfully close to San Diego, and such a beautiful coastline. So, I, ah, take it you come from a military family?"

"Yes sir, both sides."

Phlox waited for Hayes to elaborate. He didn't. "Did you decide to join MACO because both of your parents were military?"

"No, only my father is enlisted," Hayes clarified. "I meant both of my grandparents. Both sides. All my grandparents. Both grandfathers and my father's mother." He could hear his grandfather now: _Glad to know you did so well in you're _Mumbling Class_ at the Point._

Phlox waited patiently for Hayes to get it out. "All enlisted?"

"Just my father."

"And you attended Westpoint, following in your grandparents' footsteps, hmm?"

"Yes sir."

"Seems like a proud legacy of service you're upholding, yes?"

Hayes tensed up at that. "I guess so." He managed to keep his tone even, pushing his discomfort to the side. He could just imagine his grandparents' disgust at what had happened a couple of days ago – he'd certainly seen it enough on their faces. And on others.

_His face turned hard, then blank. "You will speak to the doctor, or I will speak to the Captain," Reed said, evenly. "I expect your answer first thing in the morning. Good night, major_."

Phlox decided to move on. "Do you have any siblings?"

Hayes hated answering that question and briefly considered lying. He settled for a half truth. "I have five brothers and five sisters."

His hesitation hadn't gone unnoticed by Phlox. "That's quite large for a human family, is it not?"

"Chaotic, sir."

"Do you dislike speaking about your siblings?" Phlox asked.

After hesitating for another moment, Hayes answered. "It just sounds very messy. I don't like the implications."

"And what implications would those be? Forgive me, Major, you may need to explain certain human, uh… conventions for me."

_Then maybe I should get a human therapist_, Hayes thought, annoyed. _He shouldn't have to explain this shit._ "It's just a very big family, for humans. People think it's very odd."

"And are they older, or younger?"

"One older sister, the rest younger."

"The second eldest of eleven children, I imagine your parents needed your help quite a bit, what with so many young children under one roof. Hmm?"

"I actually lived with my grandparents; ever since I was two years old," Hayes said, immediately kicking himself mentally; why didn't he lie? Yes, would have been fine, hell, it wasn't even really a lie - he had helped with his younger siblings, so that was true. And every time he mentioned this to a counsellor, or shrink, or hell, any guy he'd ever dated – he got _the look_.

"You would mind if I asked why you lived with your grandparents?"

He did; he really did. "My parents divorced after the twins were born."

Phlox gave the major a moment before continuing. "I can imagine that was quite difficult, the dissolution of a marriage is always hardest on the children." A flash of sympathy came across the doctor's face. "A galactic constant, I'm afraid."

"It was fine, sir." Hayes had his arms crossed in his lap, as casual as he could make it seem.

"How did your parents work out custody?"

"I don't know; I was two when they separated." He hesitated again, before saying the next part. "We went to live with my father and his parents." Who hadn't had a job, had married his high school girlfriend at eighteen, and had been a divorced single father of four at twenty-one; and not knowing what else to do with his life and not having the grades to get into Westpoint, had enlisted the following year. He didn't remember his grandparents' reaction at the time, but he knew full well that they weren't thrilled about it.

"In Camp Pendleton, where your grandparents were stationed?"

"We lived there, yes sir." His grandmother had been promoted to Brigadier General and given command of the base when he was around seven; his grandfather had been CO of the Mountain Warfare Training Ground from before he was born, to when he retired ten years ago. _"They're not putting those stars on me," he always insisted. "I want to work for a living," he added, dodging the couch cushion his wife threw at him, eyes twinkling._

"I take it, then, that your parents remarried?" To Hayes' surprise, Phlox hadn't regarded him with obvious pity yet. More like mild sympathy, and fascination – as though he was one of the creepy thingies, he had in cages all over sick bay and wanted to put him in one to study. Okay, that was probably an exaggeration. What had his last therapist said? Something about 'black and white' thinking?

"_Everything's not always completely positive or negative," that annoying little man had said. "But with black and white thinking it can be very easy to pigeon hole experiences into 'good' or 'bad', when a lot of things tend to be in the grey area. Is that something you think you do?"_

Fine, the doctor probably was trying to help, and his perverse fascination with human behaviour was only _part_ of the reason he was happy enough to give him counselling sessions. There. How's that for grey area.

"My parents divorced just after the twins were born, and my father remarried about three years later; my mother had three more kids, my father had four," Hayes said shortly. And then decided to volunteer, "My father enlisted a year after the divorce and was assigned to a base in Kenya, where he met my step-mother. She's also enlisted; they were reassigned to Pendleton when I was seven and moved back to California. With their new baby." Take that every therapist who'd ever called him uncooperative.

"And what was it like having your father so close again after so long? Hmm?"

"They lived on base, same as us," Hayes redirected.

"But you continued to live with your grandparents, yes?"

"Yeah," Hayes replied after his longest silence yet. "It would have been difficult for my father and step-mother to start their own family, with four young kids already around."

Phlox paused, before saying softly. "It sounds like your mother wasn't around, either, Major."

"No sir, she moved to Arkansas after the divorce. Met Frank."

"Frank?"

"Her husband."

"Your stepfather?"

"Her husband."

Dammit. But it was a gut reaction when someone mentioned Frank. His mother and her husband were not a grey area – they just sucked. And their sons. Hayes' sister, Harper, was alright. At least his nieces and nephew were cute. "So, as I understand it, your parents divorced when you were young, leaving yourself and your three full siblings with your paternal grandparents; both of your parents moved away, remarried, had more children, and even when your father and his wife moved back, the four of you continued to live with your father's parents in Camp Pendleton." A recap; not a question. "Did you see your father often after that?"

"My step-mother used to pick up kids during the week – they came over most days after school if their parents were busy. My father brought the kids over to see our grandparents most weekends."

"Not every weekend?" Phlox pressed.

"They had soccer, swimming, that stuff; couldn't always make it." Phlox didn't say anything else. When Hayes couldn't stand the silence anymore, he said, "When they went on training tours at the same time, the kids would stay with us; grandparents, my grandparents, I mean."

"Eight children in the one house?" Hayes nodded. "That must have been difficult for your grandparents, to look after so many children at once."

"I gave them a hand; and my older sister. Getting older, they needed it." They'd only been in their fifties, having their only son the summer between their first and second years at Westpoint, but still – eight kids under one roof, all missing their parents and some of them very, very angry about it. But Hayes would let himself be fed to one of Phlox's creatures before admitting that they'd struggled.

"I would imagine that you felt quite abandoned by your parents growing up, being left with your grandparents and having to watch your parents start new families," Phlox pointed out, softly. "I can only imagine what you would have went through as a child, especially if you were helping your grandparents – I doubt it left much time for you to be a child yourself."

Hayes was still waiting for some insight that his past therapists hadn't come up with. He had a feeling he was going to be waiting a while. He glanced at his watch: twenty minutes had gone by. This was going to be a long hour.

"I guess it was."

"Do you think having your childhood interrupted in such a manner has anything to do with why you started to drink at the age of twelve?"

Yup: a very long hour.

* * *

He'd rather go through Lunar survival training with a constant hangover than have to do that again. But since he had another appointment next week, and the week after, and the week after that, it looked like that wasn't an option. He'd had to speak to Phlox for a whole hour, giving the doctor as little information about his family and past drinking habits as he could get away with. This was stupid – he'd been sober for ten years because he'd gotten his own ass in gear, not because some therapist had asked invasive questions about how his mommy and daddy hadn't loved him and had gone off and had their real families. Everything Phlox had said to him, he'd heard before, from various shrinks, and none of it worked. Absolutely none of it. He would do this himself: he'd engage with Phlox as much as he'd ever engaged with any therapist, and he'd just stop drinking. He'd done it before, he could do it again. Hell, this time it was probably going to be easier, what with being isolated on a star ship. He'd focus on that: this sucked, but it would be easier than last time. There. Grey area.

"Major, I'm glad you're here; I have a favour to ask of you, if you'd be so good." Speaking of not everything not being wholly good or bad, Lt. Grey Area himself was standing in front of an open wall panel in the armoury with Cmdr. Tucker.

"Sirs," Hayes nodded, coming to stand next to Reed and Tucker, folding his hands behind his back, at ease. "What can I do for you lieutenant?"

He put down the tool in his hand, before turning to face Hayes. Reed's blue eyes were pleasant, and his mouth, while not exactly smiling, was far from the thin, severe line he'd last seen it. From his expression no one would ever guess what had happened two days ago. Or yesterday. Hayes grew warm thinking about it, which only grew worse when he noticed that Tucker had noticed his discomfort. Did Reed tell him? He was Reed's best friend. And Tucker was the Captain's best friend, and he was close with Sato, and if anyone was going to know about it, it was going to be the suitably named Communications Officer –

It could be all over the ship by now.

"About those new LR28 rifles, are you fully trained in their use?" Reed was all business, looking at him with nothing but politeness. As if he wasn't loving having this over Hayes.

"Yes sir, wouldn't have brought them on board otherwise." As soon as he'd been back on his feet after returning from the Expanse, he'd gone to the two-day seminar on a bunch of updated and brand-new weaponry that had been developed in case the Xindi invaded – and then wouldn't leave the firing range until he had them all down. It had been cathartic, and had been a distraction from drinking for about two weeks – until he started thinking about how Reed had modified some of the MACOs weaponry while in the Expanse; and while some of them had been a disaster, requiring Reed to enlist Tucker's help in fixing them ("Normally I love your mad scientist tendencies, but if you blow yourself up by accident, so help me God, Malcolm."), quite a few had been a marked improvement. And then he'd started thinking about how Reed had looked with his head ducked down, intently examining the innards of a rifle, his brow furrowed in concentration, the tip of his tongue adorably poking out between his lips – Hayes hadn't even minded that he hadn't asked if he could take the damn thing apart. That was the point shooting things had stopped making him feel better.

"I was looking over the specs, they seem like they have some pretty decent firepower," Reed said, waving a hand towards a PADD off to the side. "I would appreciate it if you could give me a crash course in the near future."

"I'd be happy to, sir."

"Very well, I'll check in with you later; right now, I need to help the commander align these circuits –"

"Because you went and threw them out of alignment to see what would happen if –"

"And I'd better get back to him, before he accidentally electrocutes himself," Reed cut Tucker off loudly.

"Who is helping who, here?"

Reed nodded at Hayes, before turning back and picking up the tool he'd been using earlier and Hayes considered himself dismissed, leaving Tucker grumbling at Reed; nothing unusual there. At first, he'd genuinely thought the two couldn't stand each other until the Twinkie incident – and even then, he'd believed that Tucker had only lost his shit like that because it was directed at a fellow Fleeter. He'd changed his mind when he'd seen Tucker with an arm slung around Reed in the latter's office. And then he'd gotten the shock of his life when he saw that Reed was crying; he hadn't known he had tear ducts.

But that hadn't been awkward, thank God. No outward hostility from Reed; no disdain, nothing negative, just a normal conversation between them; he hadn't mentioned Phlox where someone else could overhear; no, no, that had been fine. A lot better than he had been expecting, especially after what Hayes had said to him yesterday – though he kept expecting to be called in to the Captain's ready room and be reprimanded so loudly that the whole bridge could hear. That was what normally happened, in his experience. Reprimand, reassign, rehab. Rinse and repeat. But if the Captain genuinely didn't know…

Then Reed had kept his word.

_Give him a crash course_. Sure, and then let him take it apart and see how it works – without the guarantee he'd be able to put the brand-new rifle back together again. Which was why Hayes had requested extra units, so Reed could tinker and examine to his heart's content; because he was, as he loved to point out, a weapons engineer; and engineer's need puzzles, or else they start taking apart things they shouldn't, the Captain had told him a couple of days into the mission. There was nothing more dangerous than a bored engineer, the Captain had said. Hayes had thought he was joking, until, one morning he'd walked into the armoury to see three of his guys helping Reed and Tucker see what would happen if they fine tuned a phase rifle to send a continuous shot into a large, quartz prism, without shattering said prism.

A disco ball. They had been trying to make a disco ball. And it had worked – on the fourth try. Once the Captain found out, Hayes had expected him to deliver the dressing down to end all dressing downs, but no; on being sheepishly told by Reed that they were doing it 'for science' the Captain had simply responded that he 'liked science' and started helping them. That was the point when Hayes had started to doubt if he could put up with this crew without going crazy; it had also been when he'd noticed that when Reed was happy, his very blue eyes lighting up, and a slight upturn at the corners of this mouth were the only sign.

So, yeah, he'd had to finagle extra units for Reed, 'for science', because he knew at least one of them was going to ripped apart by the armoury team. He'd done it because Reed was Hayes' superior – in position, if not in rank. He'd wanted to get along better with the lieutenant, and they'd come a long way but there was still some tension. And that tension could be swept away, they just had to try and understand each other, and if that meant catering to that mad scientist's whims, then so be it. It had most definitely not been because he loved the way Reed's blue eyes lighting up were the only outward sign that he'd had an eureka moment; how smoulderingly hot he looked as he was trying to work out some problem and how cute and happy he looked when he solved it –

He needed a drink.

But he wasn't going to have one. No, he was going to check the duty roster, check in with Ed, run a training session with Sgts. Mackenzie, Ayodele, Walker, and Johansson on the LR28s, and punch the hell out of a bag in the gym. And then take a cold shower. He could do this.

He could do this.

He had to.


	2. Who Would Miss Him

"Didn't anyone ever tell you you're meant to let the boss win?"

"I would sir, but I physically cannot play that poorly."

The Captain barked out a laugh and turned to where Hayes was sitting with Capt. Eddison, Sgt. Mackenzie, and Sgt. Ayodele, cards and chips on the table in front of them. "Do MACOs speak to their COs like this?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Reed, leaning on his pool cue like a staff. On the other side of the pool table, Reed continued sizing up his shot, but looked up at the Captain, grinning.

"Absolutely not sir," Edison said, emphatically, swivelling in his seat to get a better look at Reed. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Malcolm, _ashamed_."

_Malcolm_. When had he become 'Malcolm' to so many of Hayes team? He didn't know of the offer had been extended to them, or they'd just started using his first name, but either way, it wasn't a privilege Hayes had. He had told himself that it was because Eddison was technically the same rank as Reed, while Hayes himself technically outranked him. He also had twenty-four years' experience in MACO, compared to Reed's seven in Starfleet. He intimidated Reed; that was it. And Ed was from London, so obviously they had the English connection. Yeah. That was it…

"Flog him, sir," Mac suggested, scanning her cards and the river before making her bet. She ran her hands through her blond hair, that she had taken to wearing down off duty like the Fleeter ladies did. Hayes hated it – he felt like she was going native. Traitor. "Tie him to the mast."

Reed had made his shot and was moving around the table, sizing up another. "I am trying sir, I promise you; it's just rather difficult."

"Captain, sir, you do not have to put up with this cheek," Ed insisted, eyes twinkling. He put his hand on his chest. "Allow me to escort him to the brig for you."

The Captain clapped his hand on his shoulder. "I appreciate that Ed, but I've been putting up with Lt. Reed for years; I have a long list of examples of him being insubordinate – I'm just waiting for the best moment to spring it on him."

"I am a model officer," Reed said, just missing the next shot, having sunk the last two. "I am a pleasure to have on the bridge and you should consider yourself lucky to have me on your crew."

The Captain shook his hand, as if to say 'so-so'.

"You wound me, sir."

"Like that's hard." Tucker had appeared, making a bee-line for their little corner of the rec room, passed the karaoke session a few Sharks and Fleeters were having on the PlayStation. Which Hayes had accidentally knocked to the floor the day after they'd launched last year. Reed had come in while he, Walker, and Chang had been trying to get it to work, shooed them away from it and just cracked it open on the coffee table. He'd immediately been able to tell that it had fallen and decided to take it to a free table to repair it; he'd been joined pretty soon by Tucker and the Captain, and the three of them seemed to enjoy their little engineering project – though Hayes had had to put up with 'major' puns for the rest of the night from Tucker ("You did some major damage here", "this is going to need a major chunk of time to fix", "must have been a major fall from a major height"). It had been beyond repair, and Tucker and a few other engineers had ended up making one from scratch. Lately it seemed that Hayes couldn't so much as think about the PlayStation without remembering and cringing at how after a mere twenty-four hours onboard, he'd successfully convinced three of the senior staff that he was a Major Clumsy Oaf. Hayes should have known Tucker would show up at some point; the only member of the senior staff still on duty was Sato, having taken over command of the bridge. Which meant the rest of them, even Little Miss Stoicism, was bound to come to the rec room at some point in the evening. Hayes couldn't wait.

"I am made of hardy stuff."

"You're a delicate little flower."

"But we still love you," the Captain said, and even mix of placating and teasing.

"It's not returned, I find you all incredibly irritating."

Ayo dealt Tucker into the next hand, while the Captain threatened to kick Reed's ass at ping-pong. They were always hanging out when off duty; hell, the entire crew seemed to take turns hanging out with the Captain – karaoke, cards, pool, pick-up games in the gym, the Captain was always welcome. It was a habit the MACO contingent had adopted, to Hayes chagrin. _Chagrin_. Great, now he was adopting Reed's vocabulary. Hayes spent plenty of time with his own team, sure, but unless something was being organised by Ed or Mac, Hayes would have to invite himself. Mac had been the one to tell him earlier in the day that they were going to the rec room to play poker after dinner. He didn't think they _disliked_ him hanging around, but it was a bit galling to have them favour the Fleeter Captain.

Okay, fine – it hurt.

There. How was that for not supressing his emotions. He had acknowledged it. Now it can fuck off.

"May I join you?"

No. "Of course, commander," Hayes said politely, as T'Pol took a seat and was dealt in. He hated playing poker with that pointy eared, stoic, perfect poker face-having, _Vulcan_. But he kept his face perfectly neutral, even as Reed joined them for the next hand, and Cutler for the next. This was getting too crowded for him; he excused himself from the game, saying he wanted to get an early night, and tried not to care that no one talked him out of it. Of course none of them minded, it's not like he was any fun lately anyway. Although Reed did remind him of his promise to show him the LR28s and made him agree to first thing in the morning.

T'Pol, _why did she have to join?_ He thought as he walked back to his quarters. He had nothing against Vulcans in general, just _that_ one: he knew full well that she thought he was stupid. A mindless, gun-toting space marine, that you pointed at what ever you wanted gone. That was all he was to her, her and Tucker. A tool without an actual brain. It was obvious from the way they looked at him when he approached, the way they always, _always_ cut off their jargon filled conversations when he got too close – because he was too stupid to follow whatever the hell they were saying. Well, you know, obviously he couldn't follow what they were saying, he wasn't a warp engineer for crying out loud, but that didn't make them any better than him. And the way Tucker teared up at the drop of a hat, good lord, that man did not know how to compose himself! Probably thought Hayes was an emotionally stunted ogre, to top it all off. Well, he had that in common with Hayes' past shrinks, at any rate.

And Reed. _Reed_, God, who the hell did he think he was? Speaking to his CO like that? If Hayes tried that with any colonel, he'd be court martialled faster than you could say 'just kidding'. But no, Reed was the Captains Special Favourite – the amount of crap he could get away with was phenomenal. He'd been constantly questioning the Captain's orders in the Expanse, it was like he'd never even heard of the chain of command. What else was Hayes supposed to think, with that stupid mutiny he'd clearly been planning? In the end it was just more evidence for them that _Hayes_ was the idiot. He'd been given an order, he followed it – how the hell had he been supposed to know that the Captain was being mind-controlled by baby bugs? At least he knew how to take an order and not just pick it apart like a certain lieutenant. Him, and Sato. The Captain's other Favourite. That gossipy, little brat, who knew and talked too damn much for her own God damn good. But hey, the Captain loved her. There was no other explanation as to why he let her take command shifts on the bridge – what did she know about command? The responsibility that it took? How the hell had she passed the bridge exam, anyway?

_And what would you know?_ A nasty little voice in his head asked. _How many times have you been passed over for Lt. colonel?_ The honest answer was not even once – he hadn't even been put forward for consideration. Can't be passed over if he's not even an option in the first place… _Reed won't be passed over_, he thought, bitterly. No way would the Captain allow that to happen. No, the lieutenant would be promoted to Lt. commander promptly, as soon as he's spent enough time in grade and service. As if the Captain would make him wait a day longer.

"Hi, major!"

Hayes looked up, jerked out of his reverie. "Evening, ma'am."

Ensign Sato was walking towards him, a bright smile on her face. "I just got off duty, handed the bridge back to the Captain for the night." So that's where he went. She pointed back the way he'd came. "Did you just come from the rec room?"

"Yes ma'am, just left."

"That boring, huh?" She teased.

"I wouldn't say that, ma'am."

Sato looked at him for a long moment before saying "You do know you can call me Hoshi, right? I mean, anyone who saves my life can use my first name as far as I'm concerned."

"Old habits," Hayes said after a moment. He didn't offer his own first name in return. It's not like he used it, anyway.

Hoshi was quiet for a long beat before speaking again. "Is everything okay? With you, I mean." Her face was scrunched up in concern. She did, Hayes had to admit, look very kind just then. "It's just you've seemed really quiet the last couple of months, and I wanted to check in. I don't think I've seen much of you since we left space dock."

Now she wanted to check in? Right. Reed definitely squealed. "I'm fine ma-Hoshi," he answered shortly, catching himself just in time. "Can't complain."

She didn't seem convinced, but, to Hayes' surprise, not like she was fishing for information. _Crap, she's actually concerned_. Hayes felt deflated. And every bit the stupid boor T'Pol probably thought he was. After insisting he was fine, he managed to shake her, and continued towards the turbolift. He could feel her eyes boring into his back as he walked away.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_… he cringed all the way back to his quarters at what he had been just thinking about her when he practically ran her over. Okay, fine, he was nowhere near her, but still. He felt like an ass. He _was_ an ass. She'd been nothing but kind to him ever since he'd set foot on the Enterprise, and without her they'd never have even been able to talk to the Xindi, never mind stop the weapon. She'd been a lot more vital than he'd been, considering he'd been put out of commission at a vital moment and that didn't even give anyone any pause. Hell, his team would never have so much as been able to find their way around the ship if it wasn't for her – after they all kept getting lost, she'd convinced Reed and the Captain to hold a scavenger hunt by pairing each MACO with a Fleeter. Hayes had thought it was the dumbest idea he'd ever heard. He still did. What were they, ten years old? But surprisingly they'd had more than enough Starfleet volunteers, and Reed, T'Pol, and Sato – _Hoshi_ – had worked hard on those clues and riddles. And then, afterwards in the mess hall they'd all been milling around, talking away, and it seemed like the only one who wasn't more relaxed around the Starfleet folks had been him. _And_ they'd stopped getting lost as much.

He stated thinking about the PlayStation again. Tucker hadn't even let him apologise for breaking the damn thing, insisting that it was on its last legs anyway – it had fallen to the ground so many times for various reasons, he'd really just euthanised it; the new one was a nice relaxing side-project for Tucker and whoever wanted to help him; he wasn't to worry too much about it. And he hadn't, so why was he obsessing over the stupid console now?

Making it to his quarters didn't make him feel any better. It had been cleaned up – by Reed, he reminded himself – but he knew what had happened here. And what he'd said… And after that, it looked like Reed was still keeping it from the Captain. He ran a hand threw his hair as he sat down on the edge of his bed, kicking off his boots. He leaned forward and sighed, burying his face in his hands. If the captain found out Reed was covering for him, Reed was a dead man. If the lieutenant had any self-preservation instincts whatsoever (and after serving with him for a year, Hayes had his doubts) Reed would have told the Captain immediately. He wouldn't have hooked him up with Phlox and kept his mouth shut. Especially after last night. What even was the point of keeping it as blackmail? The Captain was savvy enough to realise that that's what Reed was doing if he ended up telling him a few weeks or months down the line, and that would probably end worse for Reed than if he was actually covering for him. The Captain would end his career. He was a pretty fair man, if Hayes had to be perfectly honest. Shame and guilt washed over him over what he had literally just been thinking about the Captain. Sure, he was obviously very fond of Reed, but he also rode him harder than any other officer.

_That's what being groomed for command looks like_. The nasty voice was back. Hayes told it to fuck off and went to put his boots away. Neatly in bottom of his closet. Everything in his quarters was neat: PADDs stacked perfectly on his desk; the chair pushed in, no clothes laid over it, no, his grandparents would have gone nuts; a framed photo of his grandparents and full siblings on the shelf above his bunk; another one of him and Harper's three kids. Both Parker and Elliot had kids as well, but he didn't have a recent picture of them. Couldn't really blame them for not wanting their drunken brother around their kids too often. Hell, they'd never even allowed their kids in a car he was driving – even after being sober for ten years, not a single member of his family would get in a car with him.

And that was it. He had nothing else in his quarters. He could pack in ten minutes, fill one bag, and leave no trace.

Not that anyone would miss him.

Why was he even here?

* * *

"Good morning, major."

Lt. Pretty Eyes' greeting was almost perky as Hayes entered the training suite where Reed was waiting for him.

"Good morning, lieutenant." Coming to stand by him he saw that Reed had already laid out the LR28, but it didn't look like he had stripped it down or tried to remove its power source. At least he waited. Hayes quickly went over the rifle itself: structure, settings, and most importantly, safety features. He spent a good deal of time on those – he knew Reed was a stickler for safety and usually wouldn't touch the MACOs ordinance until Hayes had given him a run through. After that it was a free for all; Hayes had quickly realised that _can you show me this_ was Reed for _I want to take this apart without accidently blowing myself up and I need you to give me the cliff notes before I just go ahead and do it_. Hayes was even more anal when it came to health and safety, but he was still pretty slow to reach for the adorably oversized ear protectors that Reed favoured whenever he was running weapons tests. Hayes still wore ear protection, but Reed always went straight for the large, red ones; having them on made him feel more secure. Seeing them on made Hayes melt. And the goggles. God, did he love the goggles.

He could see that Reed had a million more questions about the rifle that he was holding back, so Hayes started peppering in some of the things he knew about its power source that he thought Reed might find impressive. He'd actually ended up talking to one of the engineers who worked on it during the seminar and remembering some of the questions that Reed and Tucker had asked during the training sessions with the senior staff (that he embarrassingly hadn't been able to answer), had ended up quizzing the poor woman for nearly an hour. All to impress his infuriating, smart ass of a boss. Tucker too. But mainly Reed. Dammit. He was too old for a stupid crush. Or maybe he wasn't; he didn't really remember much of his teenage years or twenties; what had that therapist said? Alcoholics are often immature due to not experiencing regular teenage crap as teenagers? So, they do it when they're older?

Yeah, that sounded like him. Forty God damn six and he was crushing on a man fifteen years younger than him, but who seemed so much more put together and sure of himself. _Let's see how fast he loses that confidence if he were separated from the Captain and Tucker, _Hayes thought bitterly. _Easy to be confident when you know your CO and the second officer is going to adhere to your every whim. Like a puppy they can't say no to. Wouldn't last ten minutes in MACO.._.

Where had that come from? Hayes gave himself a quick internal shake; he'd woken up in a much better mood than when he'd gone to bed, wincing at some – all – of the things he'd been thinking about the Fleeters last night. He had to shake this off; he and Reed had been at loggerheads at the beginning, but it was a lot better now; they'd _made_ it better. He'd be damned if he was going to ruin it. He'd be damned if he gave Reed an excuse to rat him out to the Captain.

"Did you swallow the manual?" Reed teased, as Hayes was showing him how to adjust the sight to get a target lock.

"Of course not," Hayes responded. "I just have a natural instinct when it comes to weapons."

Reed just grinned but remained silent. He got off three shots in a row at what the Fleeters called the Evil Disco Ball but missed the fourth. "You're crack shot, I'll admit that much. But the internal mechanics are not your forte."

An unwanted memory of an angry Reed schooling him in how his own equipment worked, in front of the rest of the MACOs, entered his mind. What made it worse was that Hayes had just tried to school the lieutenant on proper handling of the explosive, after he'd found Reed with his head bent over it. Reed probably would have just explained what he was doing, but no, Hayes just had to try and make a power play and an extra condescending one at that. Let Reed know just how much more he capable he was than him. Like the jackass he was.

_No. Stop it Hayes. You are with Reed, you are in the training suite, he just complimented you and you are going to take it gracefully, _he told himself sternly_. You are going to adjust his grip slightly without seeming like a creeper, and you are going to continue to have a nice time._

"I'm going to ignore that last bit, and just say thank you; you're not too bad yourself." Reed hit five in a row. "_Nice_."

They continued like that for a while, with Reed improving dramatically by the end; as he normally did whenever Hayes had given him a tutorial on MACO weaponry. They chatted while they practiced, and Hayes found himself trying to remember the last time they'd spoken to each other like this. With a jolt, he realised that it was probably before his injury; they exchanged a couple of messages in the three months the Enterprise had been undergoing repairs, and the Fleeters had been undergoing psych evals on Earth, but that was it. The message Reed had sent him the night before his own was just a list of reasons the counsellor was going to have him committed; reason number four had been _Deathly allergic to pineapple. Will consume large quantities with a spoon in one hand and epi pen in the other._ The next day, Hayes had gone out and bought a pineapple shaped pillow to give to Reed on his birthday. Hayes liked its smiley face.

They started discussing their time on Earth, and Hayes realised uncomfortably that he had never actually asked Reed how his time off had been. He hadn't even thought about it, apart from the couple of times Reed had sent him a message; his insides squirmed as he became conscious that Reed had been the one to reach out both times, and Hayes hadn't even bothered to reply promptly.

"It was rather unsettling," Reed said, putting down the LR28 for a second. "I hadn't realised that racism and xenophobia were so prevalent on Earth; or maybe it wasn't, and the situation did get worse while we were in the Expanse." He had just finished telling Hayes about the racists that had accosted Phlox in the 602 club. "Of course, everyone was so shocked that I was still in the closet last year and that I knew so many bigots, so maybe I've just never noticed it before." He turned pensive. "I'm glad Phlox didn't let it affect him too much, and he won't experience it onboard, but still." He looked up at Hayes, biting his bottom lip. "If that's the state of things, I'm just worried we're going backwards a little bit."

"It'll die down," Hayes tried to reassure him, resisting the urge to reach out and grab his hand. "People are still shaken over the attack."

"But people have been accosted, though," Reed said. "That's not the version of humanity I was saving."

Hayes didn't have an answer for him. "Phlox is fine; I'm sure he appreciated you and Mayweather defending him."

"No, I don't think he did." Reed looked a bit sheepish. "I may have gotten a tad upset, and… tackled one of them."

Hayes rolled his eyes. "Of course you did. Let me guess: he had about half a foot of height on you, and you tackled him anyway."

"So how was your vacation?" Reed tried to change the subject. And Hayes did not like the new topic. What was he meant to say? Lasted a month before hitting a bar, two weeks after that while he was busy shooting inanimate objects, and then pretty much went on a bender every second or third weekend after that for the next two months? That he briefly saw his whole family at his paternal grandparents – even Nancy, sorry, _mom_, and Frank had turned up with Carter and Finn – and he'd been panicked the entire time that they would realise he was drinking again? That only Harper would let him near her kids unsupervised? He supposed he should be grateful that they'd never cut him out, not even Parker, not even after what happened with Valerie. He'd managed to stay off the booze the whole week he'd stayed with his grandparents but couldn't bring himself to stay any longer because he was paranoid that they'd realise how much he was craving it and kick him out. He remembered the last time they'd found out he was drinking again… he couldn't bear to see that look on their faces; that mix of shame and disappointment. But they wouldn't be surprised. They never were.

"It was fine, saw the family. But you really need to stop tackling people; you're too little."

"Little!" Reed was aghast. "Big words from a man who's not exactly looking down his nose at me."

"You're going to have to speak up, I can't hear you down there."

Reed scoffed, but uncharacteristically didn't fire a shot back. Their relationship had evolved over the months from Reed being afraid Hayes was trying to take his position, into annoyed attempts to compromise, to genuine attempts to compromise, to good natured snarking.

"Are we okay?" Reed asked suddenly.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's just I don't think we've actually talked to one another, not really talked, in the last two months; which is quite the feat, considering we're stuck on a star ship together and work side by side most days. I thought we'd…" He shrugged. "I thought we had some kind of friendly thing going on."

"You thought we were friends?" Hayes teased.

"Of course not, you're far too irritating," Reed shot back, a mischievous look in his eyes. "But working together seemed a lot easier before the end of the mission, and now…" He shrugged again. "I rely on you fighting me on security and tactical a lot more than I was willing to admit, I need you're perspective; and you've been far too agreeable lately."

Hayes clammed up. What the hell was he trying to get at. "And why is that a problem, sir?"

Reed took a breath before replying. "After what happened the other day –"

"What happened the other day was a once off," Hayes snapped. "I have not had a drop of alcohol aboard this vessel before, or since." Not quite true, but Hayes didn't count that glass of wine. "I've done what you've asked, I'm speaking to Phlox; the matter is settled."

"Not until Phlox clears you for away missions."

What? "Sir," Hayes stared at Reed, flabbergasted. "You're confining me to the ship?"

"You're still allowed shore leave," Reed assured him. "But I've been thinking, and I've grown quite concerned for you since we came back; I think it for the best. For the time being," he added quickly. "I have every confidence that you'll be back in the field, so to speak, in no time."

"Of course, sir."

Reed looked pained. "Please don't shut down on me; I know this is the exact opposite of what you wanted to hear but you haven't seemed yourself lately and I'm not the only one worried."

Hayes swallowed and looked away. "You don't need to worry, lieutenant," he said, turning back to Reed. "I've got everything under control."

"I have every faith in you, but I'm here if you need any extra support –"

"Thank you, sir, I appreciate it."

Reed nodded, looking uneasy. Well, what did he expect? That Hayes was just going to bear his soul? _Extra support… _how the hell could he support Hayes? He was going to do this on his God damn own, like he always did, and he wasn't going to let some little Baby Gay that _he'd_ had to explain what a Twink was to dictate how he was going to – to – what exactly? What had Reed just offered? Help him. He wanted to help him. He had no idea what he had just offered, not really. He had no idea how much fucking work Hayes was. His own family could barely make the effort anymore. Even after he'd gotten sober…

Could he tell him? Maybe even just confess how alone and lonely he was? No. No, that was out of the question; his position on the Enterprise was already hanging on by a thread as it was. He was not going to give him anything even resembling a reason to have him thrown off. They spent the rest of the time in near silence, all conversation strictly related to the LR28.

But did he really want to be here? I mean, really? If you asked him last week, he would have said that Reed was the only one who liked him. If you asked him yesterday, he would have said that Reed was an annoying little shit with Napoleon Syndrome who was lording his drinking problem over him. What the hell was wrong with him?

Hayes didn't make eye contact with Reed again. He was too much of a coward.


	3. The Other Night

_Three days ago..._

"So, Chef has just gone to inform Cmdr. Tucker that there is a leek under the sink."

Reed's voice behind the camera was low as he crouched down to get a good shot of the leek he'd placed under the sink in the galley.

Sato's voice off camera: "This is going to be good." Hayes could hear the grin in it. The door could be heard opening off camera, and the frame shook as Reed got out of the way but kept the sink in shot. He heard Tucker before he came into view, kneeling down. Reed was clearly holding the camera so as to keep it hidden.

"I don't see a leak," Tucker said, taking a good look around in the space under there. He turned to where Hayes assumed Chef was standing off camera. "Where did you see the water?"

"There's definitely a leek in there." That was Chef.

Tucker then gave the camera some serious side-eye. Or maybe that was aimed at Reed. "What are you two doing in here?"

"We were making smoothies." Sato's voice answered. She must have been standing next to Reed. "Want one?"

Clearly not buying it, Tucker slowly turned back to the space under the sink. He reached up and turned to water on, just a trickle, and waited. "Guys, there's no leak."

Reed was walking towards him. "Trip, there is definitely a leek under the sink." He aimed the camera over Tucker's shoulder, and said leek came into view, on top of some spare cooking equipment. "I don't know how you can't see it."

They started arguing, Tucker insisting there wasn't a leak until suddenly he came up short – he dropped his head to his chest as Reed, Sato, Chef, and whoever else was in the galley burst out laughing. "What the hell, guys…"

Tucker joined in the laughter, and picked up the leek he'd finally spotted. "Are you kidding me?" He took a swipe at Reed's legs with the leek – the camera jerked as Reed jumped out of the way, laughing. He had a nice laugh, Hayes had to admit. "Are you kidding me?"

He stood up with the leek in his hand, grinning wildly. "This is the stupidest prank – are you filming this?" He looked directly into the camera, still grinning.

"Yup." Reed panned around the galley, showing Sato giggling and leaning on the island, a couple of stewards laughing around the room, but Chef seemed to be avoiding the camera. The footage ended. Hayes exited the video application on his lap top, bringing up the duty roster for the next three days. He'd been in the middle of making some adjustments when he'd gotten the instant message on the informal ship wide chat – the one the crew used for memes, movie night picks, and cute pictures of Porthos. There was another chat for quick, formal communiques between the senior staff and the rest of the crew. Mainly though, it was Reed informing them of drills, or Sato with a list of etiquette they'd need to follow for the latest diplomatic mission. He had been in the mess when they'd pulled their little prank, but he hadn't been let in on the joke, as usual. He'd wondered why the commander had actually carried a leek around with him for most of the day. He hadn't bothered to ask, and no one had bothered to tell him. He was just getting back to work when his doorbell chimed.

Reed and two of his security personnel were standing on the other side. "Evening lieutenant." Hayes eyed them up warily.

"Major." Reed nodded grimly. He handed over a PADD and Hayes skimmed the orders open on it. "The Captain has requested that I perform a full search of the ship, including all crew quarters; everything should be there. Would you mind waiting outside while I conduct the search, I'll be quick as I can." It wasn't a request. Hayes felt like a stone had dropped into his stomach, but complied and stepped into the corridor. At least he was still fully dressed.

"I was just watching the leek prank," he called from where he was waiting. He couldn't see into his quarters. He glanced at his guards, who smiled and nodded at him. Crewman Cohen and Chief Petty Officer Kipchoge, Reed's protégé and right hand woman respectively. "I wondered where Cmdr. Tucker got that leek."

Reed didn't answer immediately. _Shit, shit, shit_. "It was Ensign Sato's idea," he called back eventually. "I think she saw it in another video back on Earth." Hayes really wished he could see what he was doing. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he'd be too obvious if he could. Maybe Reed wouldn't find what he was looking for. What was he even looking for? It could be something different. The orders he was holding in his sweaty hands just said there was some missing inventory, it didn't say what was missing, if could be some God damn fruit, for Christ's sake. Right?

After what seemed like an eternity, Reed returned. "Everything seems in order major. Sorry for the interruption; enjoy the rest of your evening."

And that was it. The three of them rounded the corner, moving to the next set of quarters. Hayes let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He'd gotten away with it. _He'd gotten away with it_. With a start, he realised he was just standing frozen in the corridor and went back into his quarters. He breathed another sigh of relief. He started taking a few deep breaths, trying to get his breathing under control, and slow his heart rate back down. He wiped his hands on his pants and turned towards his bathroom to switch off the light Reed had left on, and froze. He strode into the bathroom, his ears ringing.

There, on the closed toilet seat lid, was the three quarters full bottle of bourbon. The space in the wall he'd hidden it in was open, the pipes exposed, the metal panel covering it next to the bottle. He picked up the bottle and held it in both hands.

He was a dead man.

His mind went completely blank; all he could hear was the ringing in his ears. Why hadn't Reed had him escorted to the brig? He'd obviously found the bottle, he should be expecting to be brought before a livid Captain Archer at any moment. What the hell was the lieutenant playing at, was he trying to make him sweat? Bastard.

He frantically tried to think of some kind of explanation as to why he'd had it but came up empty; could he say it had been planted? No, that was a moronic idea, who the hell would believe that? He was in for it this time. This wasn't an office job he'd been stuck in because no one else knew what to do with him, this was the Star Ship Enterprise where he needed his wits about him at any given moment; Earth's premiere vessel, savior from the Xindi, where it was a privilege to serve, and here he was, caught red handed with contraband – which he had stolen from the Captain, and clearly drank from. He was going to be sick. This was it, this was the point he fucked up so badly not even his grandmother could save him. He knew penalties for misconduct and misbehavior were more severe on vessel, was this enough for a prison sentence? Court martial for sure… and a dishonourable discharge. Would this count as dereliction of duty? How the hell was he supposed to face any of his grandparents again? How could he put them through this? Again?

Well, what the hell; he had nothing to lose now. He brought the bottle back into his bedroom, unscrewing the top as he walked and took a swig. And then another. And another. He practically threw himself down onto his bed. He wasn't used to hard liquor anymore, and it burned as bad as the other night when he'd first gotten his hands on the bottle. He could feel it burning all the way down to his stomach.

He took another drink.

* * *

He was dead. Or at least he wished he was. His mouth was dry, his stomach felt like it had taken a beating, his throat burned, and his head was pounding. He let out an involuntary groan as he opened his eyes.

"Welcome back to the land of the living; You were asleep for almost twenty-four hours."

He turned his head towards the sardonic voice that he knew so well. The movement hurt his head. He could see Reed was sitting on the low bench next to the door, reading a book and not looking at him. And as he became aware of the lieutenant's presence, he also became aware that he was wearing only his underwear, and there was his empty trash can on the floor near his head. It smelled like strong cleaner that made Hayes's head swim. He tried to roll onto his back, but something was in the way. He turned to look: it was his gym bag, extra blankets, and a couple of pillows. Reed must have used them to keep him on his side while he slept it off. He could guess why he was half naked. He slowly sat up, the blanket that had been tucked up to his chin falling down. He braced himself on the side of the bed, desperately avoiding looking at Reed by staring at his lap. He was wearing different underwear. And he was sitting a slightly damp towel. _Oh my God_…

"Yeah, you weed yourself." Reed was unsympathetic. Wait, had he said that out loud? "And projectile vomited everywhere. The bin turned out to be useless." There was a pause before Reed actually closed his book and looked up at Hayes. "Would you care to explain yourself? And more importantly – why am I covering for you?"

Hayes scrunched up his eyes and grimaced. He didn't have an answer. Not a good one, at any rate. "You didn't tell the Captain?" His voice was raspy and talking hurt his throat.

"I've not reported you for disciplinary action, no." Reed picked something up from the bench beside him and threw it Hayes. Pulling it off his head, he realised it was his pants. "I washed everything, by the way."

"Am I meant to be grateful?" He snapped. He regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth. Reed's face had hardened. "I didn't mean…" Reed didn't say anything, just stared him down and Hayes lost the courage to try and finish his sentence; Reed's face was unreadable, but Hayes could imagine the disgust he must be feeling. He stood up, slowly, and started to pull on his pants. His head felt like it was going to fall off.

"You kept muttering something about 'ten years down the drain'," Reed said eventually. "What did you mean by that?"

Hayes started hunting around for a clean T-shirt, realised he didn't have one seeing as he hadn't bothered to do laundry in about three weeks, and started to look in his hamper – which was empty. Something soft hit him in the head and he caught it before it fell to the floor; it was a clean shirt. "I told you, I washed everything."

"Everything?" Hayes asked stupidly.

"I wasn't going to leave your sheets and clothes covered in vomit, and I noticed you didn't have anything clean, so I thought while I was there, might as well." He stood up. "I noticed you were re-wearing a lot of your clothes, thought you might need a hand."

"All of my clothes are the same," Hayes asked. "It's a uniform. How could you possibly know I was re-wearing anything?" He awkwardly pulled the T-shirt on.

"By the smell," Reed said simply. "And I'm not the only one who noticed that." He wasn't accusatory, or annoyed; he sounded concerned, kind even.

"Are you saying I stink, sir?" Reed didn't smile at the attempt at a joke.

"What were you thinking?" He asked eventually, irritated. "Drinking that much in less than an hour? You nearly died!" Hayes shrugged one shoulder but made no other reply. "That is not an acceptable answer!"

"What do you care?" Hayes whirled around to face Reed head on; he regretted the quick movement as the room swam and he had to grab his desk for balance. He swatted Reed's hands away as he tried to grab him. "You're just loving this, aren't you? You can finally get rid of me."

"I haven't wanted to get rid of you in quite some time," Reed answered, his words measured. Hayes cut off whatever he was going to say next.

"Please; I bet you wish the Xindi had finished me off."

"Now, hang on –"

"Just fuck off and tell the Captain already, will you?" Hayes leaned heavily on the desk, avoiding looking at Reed. "I'll bet you can have me off the ship in a week."

"That's not what I want, you need help –"

"From who, you?" Hayes barked out a bitter laugh. "How are you going to help me?"

Reed tried to put a hand on Hayes shoulder, but he shook him. "Phlox is a qualified therapist –"

"You have got to be fucking kidding me –"

"Enough major!" Reed snapped. "You are a major in United Earth MACO, not a petulant child, and you will look at me when I'm speaking to you. Look. At. Me."

The soldier in him found himself complying with that tone of voice. As slow as he dared, Hayes straightened up but instead of meeting Reed's eyes he looked just slightly over his shoulder. He stood to attention as much as he was currently capable.

"I don't know what you were thinking last night, but at this moment in time I don't really care," Reed started. "It's unacceptable and cannot happen again; to that end there are two options: you present yourself to Phlox for evaluation, and possibly therapy sessions; or the Captain will have to take disciplinary action." Reed took a deep breath in. "Personally, I prefer the former."

"It won't happen again, sir, I don't think Phlox is necessary."

"Well, when I called Phlox here to make sure you weren't going to die of alcohol poisoning, he strongly disagreed."

Hayes tensed. Phlox had seen him like that? He really was starting to wish that the drink had been fatal. Or at least the Xindi had better aim…

"Those are my options? Sir?"

"Are you going to actually look at me at any point?" If Hayes didn't know any better, he'd say he sounded hurt. "I don't exactly _want_ to sound like I'm reprimanding a subordinate."

Hayes flicked his eyes to Reed's but didn't relax his posture. "What do you get out of this?"

"What?" Now Reed _looked_ hurt. "I get my colleague some help –"

"But I am a subordinate, though, aren't I?" Hayes didn't even know what he was talking about at this point. "I am assigned as auxiliary support for the Armoury and Tactical Officer onboard; I am at your beck and call." Taking orders from a man who was practically a _child_ compared to him. "It's not like we're close, sir."

A flash of hurt but it was brief. His face turned hard, then blank. "You will speak to the doctor, or I will speak to the Captain," Reed said, evenly. "I expect your answer first thing in the morning. Good night, major."

He left without a backwards glance.


	4. We Need to Talk About Oars

I promoted Travis to Lieutenant Junior Grade; the promotion schedule on Enterprise was as bad Voyager XD. Poor Harry…

* * *

He'd made up his mind – he had to leave.

It was the look on Reed's face yesterday that did it; that hurt look that he'd quickly wiped off his face as he schooled his features into the picture of composure. But Hayes could still remember the hurt look on his face – and he'd put it there. He'd snapped at the only person on this ship he could still be sure was his friend, no matter how much he'd try to deny it; not to mention that he'd been insubordinate to a superior who was only trying to help him. Afterwards they'd headed back to the armoury together where Reed had successfully acted as though nothing had happened. Hayes had kept glancing at him until he'd left for the bridge, but Reed hadn't given him any more attention than was strictly necessary. Until it was obvious that Hayes hadn't quite finished planning that day's drill – a joint exercise with Starfleet security personnel – and Reed had had to swoop in and finish the briefing. He'd been smooth about it ("I think you're trying to take my line, major; we should have done a dress rehearsal." It had gotten a chuckle) and had quietly told him not to worry about it, just have the write up done by the end of the day. He hadn't been ticked off at how Hayes clearly hadn't been prepared, but that was somehow worse. Humiliation had been gnawing at his insides for the rest of the day and it only grew when Mac subtly took over running the drill. She'd made it sound as though she wanted the experience – had to earn those gunnery sergeant stripes – but he'd been convinced that no one had been fooled. How long before they stopped taking orders from him?

So, the next morning he'd gotten up earlier than necessary, giving up on proper sleep around oh four thirty; made his bed, showered, shaved, wrote up his resignation letter, filled in the transfer form, and downloaded all of the documents that the Captain would need to sign to make the transfer official. He was one hell of a lot more prepared than he had been yesterday. Just before six he headed to the gym, deciding to skip sitting in the mess hall with the rest of the early birds and sleepy night crew.

"Good morning, neighbour."

Lt. Mayweather had come out of his quarters at the exact same time as Hayes, dressed in workout clothes with a towel in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He was as pleasant and cheerful as he always was; in fact, even at his absolute worst, there was nothing bad Hayes could find to say about him. And he was able to insult Hoshi. "Heading to the gym?"

"I am, sir." They fell into step beside each other as they headed towards the turbolift.

"How many times do I have to ask you to not call me 'sir'?" Mayweather asked. "You know you're not in my chain of command unless I take the bridge; and only if it's for an extended period of time; you can 'sir' away then, all you want."

It had taken the MACOs a minute to get the command structure on the Enterprise – for starters, no one could understand how Lt. Reed, never mind Ensign Sato, was higher up the chain of command than Lt. Cmdr. Tachibana, who ran the hydroponics bay and botany lab. "She's a Starfleet scientist who has never taken the bridge exam," Mayweather had explained. "It's like if a bunch of different MACOs from different areas were thrown together – a colonel who was a medical doctor can't over rule a captain who was in charge of ground forces when planning an assault, right?" His analogy had fallen flat when he'd been informed that most MACO medical staff were civilians. "She just can't, okay?" Hayes had not been too happy that the Captain was going to require _him_ to take the bridge exam – which both the Captain and Mayweather had helped him study for, but he accepted it as necessary. And gotten the shock of his life when he saw what was going to be tested, and how. His respect for any Starfleet personnel who had passed it increased ten-fold. After he'd passed it, he'd been informed that the chain of command now went: Captain Archer, T'Pol, Tucker, Reed, Mayweather, Sato, Hayes himself, _then_ Lt. Cmdr. Tachibana, and then the rest of the officers onboard. He hadn't understood how in the name of God he'd been bumped above Tachibana, until he actually met the woman – plants were the only thing she really understood. She was lovely, and helped him a little bit with the biology part, but he would not be happy with her on the bridge in a crisis. He honestly didn't even understand how she'd been selected for the mission, but he'd quickly realised just how many separate departments went into making every aspect of ship life run smoothly. And what would happen if any of the MACOs were rude to the stewards, or, God help them, Chef – or the 'help' as Cpls. Chang and Tillens had been caught referring to them as. Tucker had hit the roof.

He chatted to Mayweather – _Travis_ – on the way to gym; workouts were normally a pretty safe topic for the two of them, especially in the last few months when a bunch of new workout fads reached them from Earth. Travis was normally the first to give it a whirl and report back to Hayes on it. What had been really helpful, however, was when he ran Hayes and Ed through a whole load of Starfleet workout routines that could be done in even the most cramped crew quarters – it had really helped with overcrowding in the gym.

Hayes was going to miss this. He actually liked Travis, no matter what he always had a kind word to say about everyone, and somehow made Hayes feel better about himself. He just made everyone feel better about themselves. Tucker had once called a conversation with Hoshi and Travis 'getting on the self-esteem train'. They made you feel better in general; T'Pol made you feel calmer; Tucker would convince you that you could do it; the Captain and Reed made people feel safe. They were a damn sight better at command than he was, or ever could be, and talking to Travis, for what could be the last time only convinced him that he was making the right decision.

How could he stay here, knowing he was such a lousy leader?

* * *

"I'm officially requesting a transfer off of the Enterprise, sir."

The Captain didn't react. No surprise, no disappointment (_why would he be upset _you_ were leaving, Hayes?_), no 'why?', nothing identifiable came across his face, he just stared at the PADD being held out to him and stayed seated behind his desk. Finally he looked up at Hayes and said "Is this because you stole my bourbon and nearly drank yourself to death a few days ago?"

Hayes nearly dropped the PADD. Realizing his mouth was open, he quickly closed it and decided to play dumb. _Should be easy for you_. "Sir?" he managed to get out after a few moments. "I don't… I don't… know what –"

"You don't know what I'm talking about?" The Captain finished for him, with a slight raise of his eyebrows. "My booze is missing, you're the only recovering alcoholic on record, and I know Phlox made a house call to you a couple of days ago – the same day Lt. Reed searched the ship for said missing booze." He placed his fingers together, leaning on his desk. "Do you think I can't put two and two together, major?"

"With all due respect, sir, I don't appreciate being blamed for the theft based on my past; I've been sober for eleven years." Ten, if he stopped counting at that glass of red wine and considering how badly he'd wanted a drink afterwards, he kind of had to. He was still holding the PADD out; he awkwardly dropped his hand back down, and stood at ease.

The Captain stood, still blank faced, and slowly came around his desk, his eyes boring into Hayes the entire time, who stared straight ahead. _Shit, shit, shit_… oh, God, Reed; the Captain was going to throw the book at him – there was definitely some kind of professional misconduct case he could levy against him, could he be court martialed for this? Hayes knew how much his career meant to him, and now he'd gone and flushed it for him – it wasn't bad enough to tank his own career, he'd had to go and ruin someone else's too; he never should have let Reed cover for him, if he hadn't been such a pathetic coward he'd have come clean right away –

"Lt. Reed told me he'd found the bottle." Hayes whipped his head around to look at the Captain. Reed _swore_ to him… He was such an idiot; of course he'd told the Captain; Hayes might be stupid, but Reed certainly wasn't. He tried to push the sting that the betrayal had caused down to his boots. "He also told me he believed that the crew member in question was suffering from a relapse of an alcohol addiction that they needed to be treated for; he was rather insistent that he keep their name to himself and that no disciplinary action be taken. Phlox agreed." The Captain moved around Hayes, and over to the small table by the door and started to pour himself a cup of coffee. "And since I know your history, I inferred." He pointed to the chair in front of his desk. "Take a seat."

"Sir –"

"Jackson, take a damn seat."

It was the first time anyone onboard had used his given name; he didn't bother pointing out that he went by his middle name, Matthew. He obeyed, and the Captain placed two cups of coffee in front of him before dragging his own chair around to the front to sit opposite him. "Four sugars, no milk, right?" He pushed one of the cups closer to Hayes.

Hayes was impressed he remembered. "Yes, sir."

The Captain took a sip of his own coffee. "May I ask when you started drinking again?" He sounded genuinely curious.

"When we got back to Earth," Hayes lied. "I didn't touch a drop when we were in the Expanse, sir, I swear to you."

The Captain wasn't falling for it. "I seem to remember you having a glass of wine and a shot of bourbon last October, at my birthday. Am I mistaken?"

Hayes gripped his cup in both hands, trying to draw some comfort from the warmth. "That was the only time," he said quickly. "I did not drink before then, I did not drink after, I was sober for the entire mission. Sir, I would not, _I did not_ endanger the mission by relapsing; it was too important."

"You're damn right it was," the Captain said evenly. "But you just lied to me, so how can I trust what you just said?" Hayes stayed silent. He didn't have an answer to that. "I'm talking to you, Jackson, would you care to respond?"

"You can't, sir."

"I can't what?"

"Trust me." Hayes felt hollow; he gripped his cup tighter.

The Captain ran a hand over his face. "So your plan was to what – head on back to Earth and… then? You hadn't thought that far ahead, had you?" he continued when Hayes hesitated too long.

"I know I can't stay here," Hayes said. He was still avoiding eye contact with the Captain. "The Enterprise's ongoing mission is too important and my team needs a leader." His stomach felt like he'd eaten a bunch of wriggling snakes for breakfast.

"It is," the Captain agreed, nodding. "And they do; but why can't you do it?"

"B-Because I relapsed. You can't have a drunk in charge of the MACO contingent." He thought he'd be relieved once he admitted it, but he just felt empty inside. _You can't have someone who can't even finish planning a fucking drill_. He swallowed the uncomfortable lump in his throat. "It's what's best for the ship, sir, and it's what's best for my team."

"Needs of the many," the Captain said. He reached out and grabbed his PADD off his desk and silently went through it for a minute. "Sorry, I don't know it off by heart; here we go: Leaders have a duty to provide guidance, including resources and constraints, that allow subordinates to use their initiative and judgement to their full potential; to be committed to empowerment and to unlock the potential of every crewperson; leaders should take responsibility for subordinates in personal distress and support them to the best of their ability." He looked up, placing the PADD back on the table. "I had to sign that when I was received command of Enterprise; taking care of my crew is my number one priority and I hate to break this to you Jackson, but that includes you."

"I am not your responsibility, sir."

"If I can provide any help or support, in any way, shape, or form, then yes, you kind of are," the Captain told him, gently. "Our experience in the Expanse knocked us all around pretty badly –"

"No one else stole your bourbon, though," Hayes interrupted. "Sir," he added quickly.

"True," the Captain said slowly. "May I ask what drove you to break into my quarters and commit petty larceny in the first place?"

Because he'd just been hanging around in the rec room, sitting with a group of laughing people, and felt like he couldn't connect with a single one of them; because he'd lasted two months completely dry and hated every second of it; because every time he spoke to Reed all he could get out was 'yes sir' or 'no sir' like the simple-minded buffoon he was; because he could see how everyone was looking at him, he knew he wasn't fooling a single one of them and he had wanted to purge the memory of their expressions at him from his brain.

"It was a severe lapse in judgement, sir," he said eventually. He still hadn't drank any of his coffee.

"Well, yeah, that goes without saying," the Captain replied. "But I'm more interested in the decision making process that led to said lapse in judgement."

"I couldn't say, sir," Hayes replied.

"Can't or won't?" the Captain shot back. "Look, I'm not a therapist, not even close, but I am here, with my coffee and my dog, if you need an ear. Any time, and I mean that." He reached down to pet Porthos, who'd gotten up when he heard the word 'dog'.

"I appreciate that sir." The response was terse and clipped.

The Captain changed tack. "How long before that glass of wine did you go without drinking?"

"Ten years." Ten years where he'd worked his ass off the get where he was; after having the worst possible wake up call; after doing the worst possible thing; and now here he was, giving his CO monosyllables like a dumbass, and waiting for the axe to drop. Because it would. Of course it would, it always did. He'd be brought in, told he was a disgrace to the uniform he was wearing, sent to rehab and reassigned somewhere he couldn't cause any issues. What Captain Archer was saying was in fact new, but it wouldn't last. He'd lay into him soon enough.

"Ten years is no easy feat," the Captain said, completely serious. "Whatever is going on now, you should still be proud of that."

Proud? Of what? He shouldn't be a God damn alcoholic in the first place; he should be better than this. His people _need_ him to be better than this. Reed needed him to be better than this.

"If you say so, sir."

The Captain sighed. "You spoke to Phlox, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you are planning on continuing to speak to Phlox?"

"Until he signs me off, yes sir." _Or until you kick me off your ship_

"Okay," the Captain nodded, and crossed his legs. "Okay. What we need to do now, however, is talk about your duties."

"I have a duty to my team to ensure they have a capable leader," Hayes said. "That is not me."

The Captain thought for a moment. "Alright then." Archer got up and walked around his desk; he bent over the computer for a moment, muttering to himself as he pulled up some files. He waved off Hayes's offer his own PADD, on which he had all the necessary documents for the transfer. All the Captain had to do was sign them. "I'm not looking for that." Finding whatever he was looking for, he transferred the files to his own PADD and sat back down. "I think we should do your OERS; sorry, T'Pol and I've been trying to get through everyone as fast as we can but got sidetracked by the Augment situation, and then there was what happened on Vulcan… something had to get put on the long finger." He smiled and held up the PADD. "I told General Casey that Jones and Kimura were the only ones who gave me any problems and the rest of you were a credit to MACO, and I'd have the paperwork to prove it as soon as I could."

"I'm sorry – 'oars', sir?" Was that some old naval thing Starfleet used?

"O-E-R-S," the Captain spelled out. He grinned suddenly. "Officers Efficiency Reports; what do you call them in MACO?"

Hayes was feeling very hot under the collar all of a sudden. He started wishing someone would open fire on the ship, or try to board, or they ran into a particularly bumpy nebula – anything to get him out of here. "Just Annual Evaluation, sir."

The Captain handed him the PADD. "T'Pol and I just finished yours the other day; have a read. Aloud," he added, when it looked like Hayes was just going to skim the entire thing. It was pretty much the same as MACOs AnEvals, just a slightly different layout: Intro, list of accomplishments, extra comments, summary. "Any time today, Jackson."

Hayes's hands shook as he held the PADD up. "Out loud, sir?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

Hayes did mind; he minded very much but he knew full well that it wasn't a request. His voice was shaky as read out the first line. "An exceptional leader whose contributions to this command's mission cannot be over stated. Major Hayes has displayed the utmost professionalism and commitment to mission accomplishment. He demonstrates devotion to duty by seeking and obtaining the skills necessary to excel as liaison between Starfleet personnel and the MACO contingent onboard. His confident and calm demeanor was a great support and inspiration to those under his command, as well as his Starfleet colleagues." Hayes was shaking all over by this point. He finally drank some of his coffee to try and steady himself. _Confident and calm, my ass,_ that nasty voice said. _What do you want to bet he's going to edit it as soon as you leave? Show what you're really like?_

"Want some water?" Hayes nodded jerkily, and the Captain got up to get him some, gently touching his shoulder as he sat back down. "Continue whenever you're ready."

"I don't agree with that, sir."

"You don't agree with continuing?"

Hayes looked up from the PADD and properly at Archer's face for the first time since he'd come in. There was no disgust there, no judgement, no anger; he was just calm, and open. "I don't agree with that assessment. Especially the calm part."

Archer snorted at the attempt at the joke, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. "We all have our off days. And Cmdr. T'Pol signed off on that assessment, you want to tell her she's wrong?" Hayes shook his head, taking deep breaths. "Why don't you start on the accomplishments section?"

Hayes did so after a minute. It was just a list of ops he'd ran or assisted Reed with during their time in the Delphic Expanse. His voice and hands shook the entire time, but at least the rest of him had stopped by the time he got to the end. He'd done that; he _had_ done that, he hadn't been completely useless while in the Expanse; the Captain had even listed his score on the bridge exam, even though it hadn't been anywhere near Reed's, though he did point out that he'd only had a very short time to study and that his score was incredibly impressive, considering.

"See, why would I want to get rid of you?" Archer asked, very seriously, but softly. "That is what you're capable of; you're a damn good officer, and I'm not going to part with you without a fight."

Hayes didn't get it. He was doing exactly what he was meant to be doing; he was meant to tell his CO how he'd fucked up, his CO would agree with him and tell him he was a fuck up, and he was an embarrassment to his unit. But Hayes had learned pretty quickly that the more reasons why he sucked that he gave his CO, the less they screamed, the happier they were, and the faster he got out of there. He could handle being loudly reprimanded without moving a muscle; he didn't know what to do with this, and he felt about ten times more vulnerable.

"Then you should know that I am not capable of this anymore," Hayes insisted. He had a funny fluttering feeling in his chest, and he realised he was having palpitations. He felt very ill by this stage. The Captain started to speak by Hayes cut him off. "No, sir. I have not been performing my duties as well as I should be; yesterday I needed Lt. Reed to take over a briefing I was running, for no other reason than I was completely unprepared for it. I am not able to maintain the standards needed to serve on this ship."

"Right now, at this very minute, that might be true," Archer replied. "But you are also suffering from a relapse of a very serious illness, and I have the means at my disposal to put supports in place so that you can do your job; I fully intend to do just that."

"I don't know how long I'll need those supports." Or what good they'll do. If they'll work at all; Hayes had been telling himself that he could do this on his own, that he'd done it before and could do it again, but yesterday had been such a shit show that it had felt like a bucket of ice cold water had been thrown over him. He didn't deserve to be there, he didn't deserve the help Reed was offering, and he didn't deserve the Captain's patience.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Take your time, okay. Just take your time."


	5. Unwanted

In conjunction with Phlox, Hayes and Archer had come up with an action plan: Hayes would meet with Phlox twice a week, once for talk therapy and once for cognitive behavioural therapy; Archer insisted that Hayes take an hour for himself after each session, despite Hayes insisting that half an hour was more than enough (he didn't want _any_ time, but he decided to pick his battles); Reed would help him prioritise his workload and reassign any tasks that he wouldn't be able to get done; Reed was also going to start training him more on the tactical station on the bridge so that he could help with mission control during away missions, seeing as he was not going to be cleared to participate in them for a while; also Archer was going to have a biweekly catch up with him to make sure that the plan was working.

And most importantly, Archer and Phlox talked him into going on antidepressants. He was already taking the meds to handle the alcohol cravings, and was going to start tapering them off over the next couple of weeks, but he had absolutely refused the other meds. He'd only agreed because he was afraid that Archer's tolerance would end with his refusal; once he'd seen Archer's approving nod and smile, he was actually happy with his decision, though that little voice in his head did berate him for only doing it to keep his boss happy. But still, he'd let Phlox inject him, was told that he would need to come in once a week for it, and that he wouldn't actually notice its effect for about a month.

He tried not to think about his family's reaction to finding out he was antidepressants; they most definitely wouldn't be smiling. He kept it out of his letters to them, along with the fact that he'd relapsed; he tried not to think about how Grandpa Elliot and Grandma Dolores would scoff at his action plan; his mother's parents might not think it was such a bad idea, but Grandpa Mike, who'd been assigned under Grandma Dolores at Pendleton, would probably say something about getting his ass in gear, and not giving his superiors more work to do. He still hadn't spoken to Reed either about what the Captain had said – he'd been trying to work up the nerve for the last two weeks, but his courage had failed him every time. He didn't know how he felt about it: on the one hand it really sounded like Reed had gone to bat for him with the Captain; but on the other he'd lied to him and led him to believe that the Captain didn't know he was drinking. Hayes had been about to bring it up several times but every time he felt comfortable enough, Reed would go and make a particularly funny comment, or he'd just _smile_ at him, and then Hayes became so nervous about ruining the moment that he chickened out.

It wasn't like he hadn't had plenty of opportunities to be alone with Reed either. Reed had even invited him to his quarters to watch a movie one night, and had asked him if he was interested in joining Reed's chess club; Hayes had tried and failed to not get all fluttery and giddy that Reed was trying to spend one on one time with him. He told himself that it was just the same concern that Reed would show anyone on his team, it wasn't specifically because he wanted to spend time with _him_. It was the same reason that Travis was making a point to ask him if he was going to movie night – just regular concern you'd show a crewmate who 'seemed a bit down'.

Because that's how he'd overheard people referring to him; he'd been up on the walkway in the armoury the other day when Sgt. Ayodele had entered the lower deck, deep in conversation with Sgts. Walker and Johansen. She'd been telling them that she thought they needed to take on a little more responsibility to ease the pressure on Hayes – he was a kind of off lately, Walker agreed. He also knew that the only reason Ed and Mac were pestering him about assisting on training schedules was because they 'thought he needed a break'. To cap it all off, just now, when he entered the bridge from the rear door instead of the turbolift, he'd caught the tail end of Reed, T'Pol, Travis, and Hoshi's conversation. Okay, fine, he didn't hear anything, but they all stopped talking as soon as the doors opened, and he knew how much the three of them gossiped, what was he supposed to think?

"Afternoon major." Reed just glanced up as Hayes exited the turbolift, with Hoshi glancing over her shoulder at him from where she was taking readings on the console behind Reed. She'd been in the middle of saying something when Hayes had come in, and was now suspiciously quiet.

Despite the fluttery feeling in his chest and the knots in his stomach, Hayes knew he appeared cool and calm on the outside. He strode into the bridge proper, and faced T'Pol. "Permission to enter the bridge, ma'am?"

"Granted, major. Are you familiar with the phenomenon of micro-singularities?" T'Pol asked him, still seated at her station. Was she seriously going to pretend that they weren't just talking about him? The nerve of that pointy-eared, arrogant –

"I'm afraid not, ma'am," Hayes replied.

"The next question is would you like to be," Travis joked, but his smile faded when Hayes did not return it.

"Lt. Mayweather is mistaken: you do not have a choice. Please take a seat." T'Pol indicated the seat next to her, which Hayes took, ignoring the way Hoshi kept glancing at him. T'Pol, for her part, hadn't even changed her expression; there was no discernible emotion whatsoever on that women's face. Tucker liked to claim that he was able to read her like a book, but Hayes didn't know how serious he was. He also claimed that she had a wicked sense of humour, but Hayes was convinced he had the hots for her. "They are a little studied phenomenon that has caused us difficulties in the past," T'Pol continued. "I have several appearing on my sensors at the moment, and considering the damage they are capable of I believe a 'crash course' would be necessary."

She brought up some readings on her console that Hayes was barely able to interpret. "Lt. Reed is in the process of improving our shielding –" Brainiac nerd "And it might be helpful for you have a basic understanding of them to see where the lieutenant is coming from."

Yeah, basic. Had to be basic for him. Big, dumb MACO, who was apparently too stupid – no, _asinine_ – to comprehend that they'd just been gossiping about him before he came in. She was really just going to plow ahead with whatever these phenomena were, completely ignoring the fact that he'd caught them red-handed; he knew full well that they were a bunch of fucking gossips, he'd spent enough time on the bridge to know that there was literally nothing else to do sometimes – space was big and a lot of it was empty, as Tucker liked to put it. But to just continue on as though he hadn't heard them discussing him personally, and not just idle gossip either, something that was highly sensitive, the _arrogant_, inconsiderate, rude, callous –

"Before we begin properly, however, you should know that we were just discussing Cmdr. Tucker's upcoming birthday party when you entered. We'd like it to be a surprise; and you are of course invited."

Hayes was very glad in that moment that Vulcans required physical contact to read your mind. The anger deflated like a punctured balloon. _God dammit_…

"My lips are sealed, ma'am," Hayes said, feeing the flush creeping up his neck. He started wishing the floor would open him up and swallow him whole. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_…

"Better not be keeping something from me."

The Captain had just come out of his ready room. He strode over and peered at the readings T'Pol had on her console. "Anything new on the micro-singularities?"

He was leaning on the back of Hayes chair and was getting pretty close. He had been told by various members of the crew that the Captain was pretty touch-feely, but had still not quite been prepared for the amount of pats on the back the Captain gave out – nor the fact that they were literal, physical, pats on the back. Reed had overheard some of the MACOs saying they weren't comfortable with it, and told the Captain. Hayes had been furious, thinking that Reed had been trying to alienate the Captain from the MACOs, but Captain Archer had immediately apologised and said it wouldn't happen again; and Reed was left thinking that he was dumber than Porthos. He'd genuinely been trying to think of a way to tactfully broach the subject with the Captain, but then Reed had just went and told him straight out when he'd come down to the armoury for a sit rep.

_"He wants you to know you've done a good job, not feel creeped out," Reed had said, rolling his eyes. "If he's upset about it, it's because he's the cause of some people's discomfort; he's not even remotely annoyed at you or any of your team."_

T'Pol gave Captain Archer a quick update, and Hayes was surprised, yet happy to realise that he could actually keep up with conversation. Reed added his two cents every now and again, updating the Captain on how the shielding improvements were coming along. The Captain seemed happy with the progress, and moved to take his seat, clapping Hayes on the shoulder as he left. Hoshi had returned to her station while the others had been speaking, but just now gave T'Pol a look ever her shoulder.

In response T'Pol nodded and then said so quietly that Hayes almost didn't hear her, "Gazelles."

Hayes stiffened. He glanced over his shoulder at the Captain, but he didn't seemed to have heard her. He turned back to T'Pol, who was acting as though she hadn't said anything at all, she just continued giving Hayes the low-down on the singularities. Hoshi looked at T'Pol again, then made eye contact with Hayes, her eyes twinkling, and said slightly louder, "Gazelles."

Travis, realising what was going on, glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Hayes could hear him say, almost imperceptible, "Gazelles."

'Gazelles' was a game the bridge crew played when they were bored: they would each take turns saying the word 'gazelles', getting increasingly louder, until the Captain asked them what they were doing, and then they would play dumb. The MACOs hadn't gotten it until Hoshi did her, admittedly very good, impression of a speech Captain Archer had given a couple of years ago. He knew they did it, he'd walked in on Hoshi saying she'd seen gazelles giving birth enough times, but didn't seem to mind the crew poking fun at him. It was one of things that Hayes respected most about him, that he was such a down to Earth, good natured guy. T'Pol gave Hayes a small nod; Hayes took that as his cue to take his turn, whispering "Gazelles."

It didn't seem like the Captain had heard any of them. Until Reed took his turn and the Captain said "You muttering to yourself, Malcolm?"

"Just a tickle in my throat sir."

The Captain stood up a moment later, saying that he wanted to check on some paper work. The bridge was silent for a moment before there was a click over the comms and Captain Archer's voice boomed out "GAZELLES!"

Except for T'Pol, they all jumped. They stared at the comm for a moment in silence, before starting to chuckle. Except T'Pol. She just told them that she found it amusing.

* * *

"How long have you believed that the senior staff view you this way?"

"Only lately, to be honest."

"And what makes you think this?"

"Why wouldn't they? It's not exactly a secret I can't keep up with them academically. Especially Lt. Reed; I swear, he is one of the smartest people I know."

It was his fifth session with Phlox, and he had to admit he was a lot more comfortable around the doctor than during his first session. Phlox was a lot less condescending than the MACO shrinks he'd been forced to see, and was trying his hardest to change his therapy style to one that would suit Hayes. It was still a lot of the same cognitive behavioural bullshit he'd been trying for years, but Phlox wasn't making him feel bad for forgetting to use it. He'd actually had one shrink tell his CO that he was being highly uncooperative – after the second session. Hayes had just started telling him what he wanted to hear after that. He'd just told him what had happened on the bridge yesterday, when he'd been convinced that they'd been talking about him before he'd come in.

"And what did you feel once you realised that they had been talking about Cmdr. Tucker's birthday?"

"Like an idiot, I'm an idiot," Hayes shrugged. "I mean, why would they be talking about me? They don't even want me around."

"When did you start to believe you were so unwelcome?"

"I don't know, last couple of months, I guess."

"Hmm." Phlox looked thoughtful. "Remind me of your role on the Enterprise, please."

Hayes sighed. Phlox had asked him this before. "To provide support to the Armoury and Tactical officer during away missions and to augment ship's security."

"And what is Lt. Reed's role?"

"To maintain the armoury and its inventory; monitor ship's security and emergency procedures; provide tactical expertise on the bridge." Drive him to distraction with his pretty blue eyes.

"Are your roles different?" Phlox asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

"They are, but," Hayes said quickly. "The lieutenant could easily take over my job; I can't do his; I don't have the know-how, and there's no way I'd ever be able to do it."

"You mean you're not intelligent enough." Not a question.

Hayes hesitated before answering. "Well, yeah," he said finally. He'd hadn't really brought this up with Phlox before now, though they had touched on the whole 'negative thoughts' and 'redirecting his thinking' in the last couple of sessions. Once Phlox realised that Hayes wasn't really going to be forthcoming with any of his insecurities, and therefore coming up with ways of turning that thinking around was going to be useless, he'd decided to just talk with him until he felt comfortable enough. And he was getting comfortable; Reed had told him that Phlox was essentially a black box of information – they were only to get something out of him if it looked like Hayes was going to crash. But what had really happened was that he was sick of assuming the worst of his colleagues only to be confronted with evidence to the contrary seconds later – it was exhausting and always left him feeling so guilty over what he'd been thinking. Especially the couple of times he'd snapped at Lt. Smarty Pants. So, Hayes woken up that morning having decided to actually engage with Phlox a little bit more that day, talk about his feelings, and maybe get some feedback.

He was terrified.

"Well," Phlox began, looking at him expectantly, "Why do you need to have the expertise Lt. Reed has?"

"I…" Hayes thought about. "I guess I don't."

"And how does your knowledge of combat compare to Lt. Reed's? Hmm?"

Hayes was silent for few moments. He was grateful that Phlox just said take your time, and let him organise his thoughts. "Mine is much more focused on ground offensives and defense of the ship incase we're boarded."

He knew full well that at first Reed had quietly seethed when Hayes was delivering briefs; he'd only found out in November that it was because _he_ was making _Reed_ feel insecure that he was going to take over security. Then they'd had their little fight - or the Fisticuffs Incident, as Tucker called it – and Reed had confided in him about how badly his experience on the Aurora had messed him up. He'd promised Reed that keeping the crew safe was Hayes's number one priority, and he was just as dedicated to it as Reed was; he'd seemed mollified when Hayes pointed out that he needed Reed's knowledge of the ship to get that done.

"MACO strategies and weaponry are still a few years ahead of Starfleet's," Hayes said. "I guess that's what I bring to the table." Although there was, about a week into the mission, an incident where it looked like a couple of the youngest privates were going to crack under the pressure.

_"I'll admit the stakes are much, much higher than any training exercise you've ever done," Reed had said to them. "There's no getting around that, I'm afraid. But how you react to them is the same; what you've been taught to do is the same; I have every confidence you all know what you're doing; you'll be fine."_

"But I didn't really know what I was getting into until a few months into the mission," Hayes admitted, his voice low. He swallowed that bad taste that wrapped itself around the back of his throat whenever he thought of the members of his team that he'd lost. "I was prepared to deal with most of the situations we found ourselves in, but um… I guess it was afterwards…" he trailed off.

"Reed seemed like he could handle anything," he continued. The entire ship seemed like it was shaking apart sometimes and he would be cool as a cucumber, clearly and calmly giving orders in the armoury or over the comms if he was on the bridge, while at the same time having to keep some of the MACOs from freaking out; they hadn't liked that they didn't have much more to do than stand there when in a crisis situation, or if they were hit with a particularly bad anomaly. As a result Reed had started them on a pretty comprehensive training schedule in star ship operations; actually having something to do had basically nixed any anxiety they'd felt when caught in those situations again. When he pointed this out to Phlox, he said,

"Why is it Lt. Reed you seem to compare yourself to the most?"

That threw Hayes. Why was it Reed? Their roles weren't that dissimilar; Reed had turned out to have a lot more ground tactical knowledge than Hayes was expecting, though Hayes had more; Reed, however, had far outstripped Hayes when it came to actual combat experience and just how important that was going to be in dealing with what they saw afterwards had been a real shock to the system; it had also been the point that Reed had actually told them about the Aurora in the first place, and doing so, telling him about his experience like that… well, his estimation in Hayes's eyes had skyrocketed. They also had similar backgrounds, coming from military families, though Hayes didn't know how strict Reed's had been; Hayes grandparents had kept an extremely tight leash on their grandchildren. They always figured it was because they had never really been there for their son, so with their grandchildren they'd just swung the other way completely. Hayes and his siblings had learned to get very sneaky, at a very young age.

"Because he's the one I want to impress." And there it was; almost right from the start, Reed had been giving him flack: for being too military, for not being techie enough, for the almost forty MACOs crowding his armoury and just generally being in the way, for making security suggestions that just weren't feasible due to how the ship was laid out ("Of course, major, we'll just redesign parts of the ship; I'll get Cmdr. Tucker right on it").

"I thought he was looking down his nose at me; so I tried to be better, to work around him better, and to, I don't know, I wanted to show him that MACO had a purpose on the ship; other than being in his way." That had also happened a lot; Reed had come into the armoury more than once carrying something heavy, only to have four or five MACOs physically blocking his path. Or he would have to send them to the walkway or out of the room entirely so he could fit whatever he needed to look at. He'd lasted a week before he cracked.

"I thought he thought I was pretty useless; he didn't ask for my opinion on anything, and he tended to ignore me if I offered it. Then we actually had a really good conversation, and things got a lot better for a while." He wasn't going to tell Phlox just how insecure Hayes had made Reed feel; it felt like a betrayal.

"For a while?" Phlox asked quizzically. "I was under the impression that you were working quite well together; did something change?"

Hayes paused, taking a deep breath in. "He started working _with_ me a lot more; just including me in things he was doing, asking for my opinion, you know. I thought that he thought I was kind of dumb, and then I realised that he didn't think that at all but that he probably should."

"And why should he think you're dumb?"

"I actually realised just how smart he was." He knew Hayes's equipment better than Hayes did, or at least how it worked; whenever Hayes proposed a plan of attack, he seemed to know the history behind the strategy – and Hayes always fact checked; having been born in Sri Lanka he spoke fluent Tamil and Singhalese, and passable Mandarin from when he'd lived in Malaysia; he had a college degree from St. Andrew's in math, in addition to the master's in applied mathematics he'd earned over the three years he'd been at Starfleet Academy. He actually told Hayes that he'd gotten good enough grades in the A levels for direct entry into second year in St. Andrew's; he could keep up with Tucker when he was talking about warp theory; he could even keep up with T'Pol, most of the time; and Hayes liked to read himself, but Reed devoured books like he did pineapple, and not just the YA fiction that he, Hoshi, and Cutler passed around between themselves – non-fiction, classic literature, geography, history – if he wasn't working over lunch, then he was reading. Hayes had already thought Malcolm was impressive before he opened up, but this was probably when his little crush on him first started to develop. He hadn't told Phlox about that though.

When told all of this to Phlox, he responded "And what about your education and achievements? Your technical expertise? Hmm? Why is Lt. Reed's anymore impressive than yours?"

"I don't think I'm that intelligent," Hayes replied, shrugging. "I've got a lot of brute strength, and I can shoot straight but that's about it."

After a beat Phlox said, "Do you remember last time when we spoke about identifying negative thought patterns and how comparing yourself to others can lead to them?" Hayes nodded. "Well, what you've just told me just now is a very good example of such thinking: believing that your accomplishments and expertise are worth less than someone else's. Do you think you're ready to try to tackle some of those negative perceptions?"

"Um…" Hayes thought about it. "Yeah, now's as good a time as any I suppose." That and he liked Phlox's mannerisms and how he put things sometimes; he had a unique way of looking at things that he wasn't trying to force on Hayes, although he had realised after the third session that Phlox was playing up the dumb alien routine to get Hayes to explain things and think them through a little more. It was very different to what any therapist he'd had had done in the past; and there was no risk of him spilling whatever Hayes said to him to the Captain. Unlike one or two of his therapists in the past…

"Excellent, I actually have a cognitive behavioural therapy tool that I think we should try."

"Sure, go for it." Hayes waved a hand, as Phlox got up and went into the main room. He returned after a moment and sat back down. Hayes didn't take his eyes off of what Phlox had in his hand.

"Doctor, are you going to shoot me with that Nerf gun in this professional setting?"

"That's really up to you, isn't it?" Phlox gave a super wide smile – one that went a lot wider than Hayes had been expecting. _So that's what Reed meant_… Phlox waved the Nerf gun to encourage Hayes to continue speaking.

"What do you want me to say? More importantly, what's not going to get me shot?"

Phlox thought for a moment. "Perhaps you could tell me about your own education?"

"Uh, just high school and college, I guess," Hayes said, scratching behind his ear. "I stopped drinking senior year of high school because I wanted to get into WestPoint and I needed to bring my grades up."

"And you did just that," Phlox pointed out, kindly. Though he still had the Nerf gun trained on him.

"Yeah, but only because my grandparents got me tutors; there would have been no way otherwise. I've always needed help with that stuff, it's not something I find easy."

"And what about when you were in WestPoint? Surely you did well there?"

"I don't know how, though," Hayes replied. "Like I said, I'm not that smart –"

_Phoop_.

Phlox shot him in the chest with a Nerf dart. Hayes looked at where it had fallen in his lap; but he had enough experience with CBT to know why Phlox had shot him. "But, since I did manage to pass all of my classes and get in in the first place, that counts for something?"

No Nerf dart.

Hayes continued, "I just think that I should have done it by myself, for the bridge exam _Reed_ actually tutors people –"

_Phoop_.

"But he and I are completely different people, and we both have our strengths and weaknesses."

No Nerf dart that time either.

It was definitely the most interesting therapy session Hayes had ever had. Every time he talked shit about himself or compared himself to someone else – his grandparents, his siblings, Malcolm, Tucker – he got a Nerf dart to the chest and changed his language; and God dammit, if he didn't actually start liking himself a little better by the end. And Phlox knew it; smug bastard. Hayes actually left that therapy session a lot more hopeful than he'd been in a while; he could definitely do this.

He could.

It was going to be okay.


	6. Not a Date

_Have you ever seen Band of Brothers?_

_No what's it about?_

Hayes stared at his PADD waiting for Reed to reply, trying to quash the hope that it was a movie, and that Reed was going to ask him to watch it with him. He'd asked him to watch one last week, and Hayes had ended up staying two hours after it the credits rolled, just talking with Reed. He kept making Hayes laugh, and he'd smiled more than Hayes had ever seen him. He hadn't wanted to leave but he had to when he realised that it was past midnight and he had to run PT in the morning. For all of his aloofness when on duty, Reed was pretty sweet when you got to know him. He'd been all business when they'd first met, and seemed totally unflappable and hypercompetent, having memorised MACO protocols and had made Hayes feel insecure for only skimming Starfleet's. He'd thought that the mission was mainly going to be the Armoury Officer showing, or trying to show up the intellectually inferior MACO Major; until after they'd launched and preparations had calmed down and the Starfleet folks looked like they were actually getting enough sleep, and Reed had awkwardly offered him a biscuit and a cup of coffee and told him that he normally took breaks around ten thirty and fifteen thirty if possible, and would the major like to join him?

He'd looked so self-conscious that Hayes hadn't had the heart to say no; he'd quickly realised that Reed wasn't too confident socially. In the armoury? Sure. On the bridge? Unstoppable. Being sent down to a strange planet to negotiate for supplies with Hoshi? Those two could haggle like nobody's business. But trying to get to know Hayes's team and Hayes himself? He'd been a little awkwardly friendly for the first few days, but it seemed like he was making the effort to connect; but then he'd been dragged out of the closet by his hair, and the Twinkie incident happened, and Reed had clammed up. He'd turned cold, aloof, and a complete hardass, and tolerated nothing but shop talk in the armoury after that. He still insisted that everyone make sure they take breaks but he'd stopped inviting Hayes specifically, and was a lot less tolerant of them in his space. Hayes's heart skipped a beat at the reply a moment later.

_TV series from the twenty-first century about the American 101__st__ airborne division in WW2. It's my favourite series I was going to rewatch the first episode do you want to come to my quarters and watch it with me?_

Hayes counted to five minutes before replying _Sure. What time?_ Looking at his watch, he saw that it was nineteen forty-five.

_Fifteen minutes? I need to polish off some paperwork _

Hayes messaged back immediately. _I'll bring the popcorn_

He quickly changed into a clean T-shirt and then just stood in his underwear trying to decide between pajama bottoms, or his dark grey sweatpants. Maybe his jeans? It had been a surprise to find out that all of the Fleeters had civilian clothes with them in the Expanse, and they sometimes wore them when off duty. He remembered that Reed had that one grey jacket that went so nice with his eyes…

_Just decide on something Hayes_. This was ridiculous; he was not a teenager getting ready for a date, he was a forty-six year old man who was about to watch a movie with his boss/friend/pain-in-the-ass. Who was fifteen years younger than him. And was not interested in him that way. And was going to start wondering where he was, if he didn't decide on a God damn pair of pants and go get the stupid popcorn.

He'd decided against the jeans, they weren't comfortable enough to just lounge on Reed's bed in. _You could take them off when you get there_… Hayes told that voice to stuff it. Last time Reed had asked him to watch a movie with him he'd worn his uniform, only to turn up and see Reed was in his pajamas. He could wear his own pajamas. But then he'd have to walk back through the ship in his pajamas, and while the Fleeters had no problem with doing that – Hoshi had a lot of Hello Kitty stuff; Cohen was a very proud Hufflepuff; Archer had a thing for cotton plaid and fluffy slippers – Hayes wasn't quite comfortable wandering around in his PJs. Sweat pants it was, he could pretend he was on his way back from the gym. But should he really wear this T-shirt? It was plain white, it didn't really do anything for him. Not that he needed to be focused on how he looked right now; why did he need to impress Reed? He was still a fucking pain in the ass, constantly sniping at him and arguing. Well, it was more good natured teasing now, but still. There was nothing between him, Reed did not see him like that, he did not need to change into his maroon Under Armour because it brought out his green eyes and accentuated his biceps, he was changing because it would look like he was coming back from the gym. That was it.

Should he wear the pull over, or zip up hoodie? He really needed to talk to his sisters, Piper or Harper. The bizarre image of him showing up at Mac's quarters to get her to help him to decide what to wear for a not-date with Reed entered his mind and he had to chuckle at it; and immediately became a little sad, when he realised that he didn't really have anyone onboard to bounce outfit ideas off of.

_No_, he told himself sternly. _You have friends onboard, you could probably broach the topic with them over lunch or something; for fuck sake Reed just asked you to spend a couple of hours with him to watch his favourite movie; they want you here; calm the fuck down, Hayes_.

There; he'd done his CBT for the day.

He eventually decided on his olive green hoodie, because he looked damn good in green and it matched his Under Armour; and he was dressing for his own self esteem right now, not because Reed would appreciate how he looked in it. And realistically, with Reed's sense of fashion he probably wouldn't. He had two nice jackets that Hayes had seen, but none of his jeans fit him properly and most of the colours he wore just washed out his very pale face. Maybe he'd want to go shopping with Hayes when they got back to Earth…

He checked the clock on his desk – a green Lego brick that Reed had gotten him for his birthday last month – and with a start realised that it was almost twenty hundred. _The popcorn_. He grabbed his zip up hoodie and ran out the door and to the empty galley, made a bag of microwave popcorn and grabbed a bar of chocolate from the pantry, and practically ran to Reed's quarters.

"You're very tardy, major," Reed said as he took the candy from Hayes and stepped back to let him in. He was dressed in his PJs as Hayes had predicted, and was barefoot. He had a lot more decoration in his quarters than Hayes did; the shelf above his bunk was full of books, mainly classic eighteenth century literature, and a few history books. There was a stack of YA novels on his desk that Hayes knew he passed around with Hoshi, Cutler and a couple of others on board; on one end of his shelf was his chess board, while on the other was a picture frame that alternated between a picture of the entire bridge crew; Reed and Archer; Reed and Tucker; Travis and Hoshi; Reed, T'Pol, and Phlox; and Reed's armoury team; and there was the pencil sketch of Porthos on his closet door, and a couple more of tall ships dotted around. The Captain actually had a watercolour of Enterprise in his ready room – he'd found out a few months ago that the Captain had seen Reed working on it in the rec room, and had asked for it. Oh, yeah, the Captain didn't have favourites. Nope.

Reed's laptop and PADD were on his desk, with the show set up to play on the laptop. Reed lifted it off his desk with one hand and sat down on his bed lengthways; he patted the space beside him. "I thought we'd be more comfortable sitting this way, I didn't really like dangling my legs over the side last time."

Hayes sat beside him on the single bed, pressed right up against him, and stretched out his legs. Reed played the movie and the two of them passed the food back and forth as they watched. A couple of times, Hayes could see Reed looking at him out of corner of his eye, waiting to see his reaction at certain parts of the show. Hayes just mock gasped and turned to Reed, who grumbled that he wasn't paying attention to one of the best pieces of cinema of all time.

"Then why doesn't Tucker play it for movie night?"

"Because I'm the one asking for it, and he likes to be mean to me."

But honestly it was difficult to pay attention to the movie with Reed so close; their arms and legs were touching their entire length, and he found himself wishing he'd put on cologne, or at least showered. His heart jumped into his throat when Reed cocked his head to the side and Hayes actually thought that he was going to put his head on his shoulder. When he straightened his neck, Hayes contemplated throwing an arm around his shoulders, or just stretching his arm back to make space for Reed to lie against him. He could pull that off, he wouldn't make it too obvious; he could be subtle. But then where did he go? Did he kiss him? Did he just hold him? He was ninety percent sure that Reed had never been with a man before, from comments he'd made about being in the closet for only a year and being in a river in Egypt before that; he'd mentioned past girlfriends once or twice before he was outed, so he probably had experience there, but with men? Hayes doubted it. How far would he want to go? It was completely up to him, obviously, Hayes would be happy to just make out a little bit. With as little clothes as he could get away with.

This was ridiculous; there was no point in trying to make out with a man who had no romantic interest in him. And furthermore, he still hadn't confronted him about what he'd said to the Captain about his drinking. He didn't even know how to bring it up, did he just do it? Say it out right? He wasn't even sure what to say, and things were so good between them at the minute, did he really want to risk messing it up? But it was honestly eating him up inside; why hadn't he just told him the Captain knew? _Just do it Hayes._ Was there really going to be a good time? So, when Reed was about to play the next episode, he told him to hold off on playing it for a second.

Reed looked at him quizzically. "You going to the loo?"

"I'm not going anywhere, I need to speak with you about something." Hayes got up off the bed and settled himself in Reed's desk chair. Reed swung his legs over the edge of the bed and leaned on his elbows. He looked pretty confused, and a little worried.

"Not something serious, I hope?"

"Depends." Reed furrowed his brow at that. "You led me to believe that the Captain had no idea that I had a drinking problem; in fact you _swore_ to me that you hadn't told him –"

"I did no such thing," Reed cut him off. "I told you that I hadn't reported you for disciplinary action –"

"Same implication –"

"Which was true," Reed finished, slightly forcefully. He glanced down, before looking back up Hayes, his face stern. "I defended you, I had Phlox speak to him on your behalf, he's happily giving you whatever you need, I don't know what the problem is."

The problem was he didn't entirely trust the Captain. Because why would Captain Archer be so happy to give someone so much support? Hayes knew that the Captain was okay with what he was letting him get away with right now, but how long was that going to last? He had a ship to run, he was going to get fed up of a sub-par officer pretty fucking fast. "But why didn't you tell me that he knew?" Hayes pressed the issue.

"Because he ordered me not to," Reed responded, very clearly annoyed now. "He wanted you to speak to Phlox first; he wanted to get an idea of how much support you needed before confronting you. And since there was no reprimand, I don't see what the problem is."

Hayes sat back, and ran a hand over his jaw. "I was just confused; I thought…" he trailed off. He didn't think it was a good idea to let on just how suspicious he'd been of Reed's intentions in the days after. "I just wanted some clarification, that's all."

"What did you think?" Reed asked, suspiciously. It was something that Hayes had realised right off the bat: Reed would notice even the slightest hesitation. "You thought I was going to blackmail you, didn't you?" He continued accusingly. "I remember, you said that I was lording it over you, or something like that." He stood up abruptly, and walked a few paces before whirling around and facing Hayes. "Did you honestly think I'm that devious? That I'm that cold and awful?"

Hayes stood up but Reed took a step back. He was more unguarded than Hayes had ever seen him, with his arms crossed defensively and a hurt look on his face. "Do you really think that poorly of me?"

"No, no, of course not," Hayes said quickly. He took another step towards Reed. "I just – I just haven't been thinking straight lately."

"You accused me of 'loving this'," Reed retorted. "I thought we had an understanding, I thought we were on friendly terms at the very least."

Hayes raised his arms slightly. "I can only say I'm sorry. And we are on friendly terms. We are."

When they'd had their talk after the Fisticuffs Incident, when Reed confided in him about the aftermath of the Aurora and how it made the PTSD he had from childhood worse, he also confessed that he'd started having panic attacks when thinking about having to spend any length of time in the armoury when it was full of MACOs; he'd experienced so much crap for being labelled as gay growing up that the thought of being in that room with people who he wasn't sure would want to hurt him for actually being gay had been making him physically ill. He hadn't meant to make them feel unwelcome, but retreating into work and being more disciplined than ever was the only way he could manage it. Hayes hadn't quiet been as understanding as he'd led Reed to believe, but had decided to pretend so as to bury the hatchet. Really, though, homophobia was ancient history; Hayes himself had certainly never experience it and he'd been sure he was gay since he was eleven. Although, come to think of it, it did explain why the Captain had let Reed pretty much pawn off his duties in the armoury on Chief Kipchoge, if he had been having panic attacks over it.

"We are now, you mean." Reed crossed his arms tighter over his chest. "I suppose it's only natural that there's some left over hostility."

"I wouldn't say there was hostility –"

"Then what would you call it?"

Hayes huffed. "I seem to remember it was _you_ who was convinced that _I_ was trying to replace _you_, you know." It had been pretty upsetting for Hayes to realise that that's what Reed's problem had been; of all the unprofessional bullcrap he could have thrown at him, that fact that his attitude had been driven by childish jealousy had actually pissed Hayes off. He'd held his tongue at the time, but very nearly hadn't; it was only when Reed mentioned the Aurora, the name of a ship even all the MACOs knew, that he kept quiet to let Reed finish. It had been his first posting out of the Academy; a small science vessel, with a crew complement of thirty, most of whom had been civilian scientists, and the rest Starfleet engineers. Reed had been one of them, having wanted to specialize in engineering when he first graduated. They'd been attacked by Nausican pirates, and though they'd fended them off, there had been power surge and radiation leak in Engineering. It had been contained, but not before it spread to the adjacent compartments. Twenty-two people had died, slowly, of radiation poisoning. After that, Reed had transferred to Starfleet Security, and took the bridge exam. He wasn't watching his crewmates die again.

A red tinge had appeared on Reed's cheeks and he uncrossed his arms, clasping his hands behind his back, at ease. "I seem to recall apologising for that, after offering an explanation. And you accepted it, if memory serves." Hayes could see him shutting down; gone was the man who'd been openly giggling at certain parts of the show.

"I didn't mean –" Hayes started

"If I failed to offer a satisfactory explanation, I do apologise again, major," Lt. Reed interrupted him.

"It's not that –"

"If it isn't, then you wouldn't have been convinced I was going to stab you in the back."

"I've just never had anyone go to bat for me like this," Hayes confessed. He flopped back down on the desk chair. "Every time I get caught relapsing, no one wants anything to do with me. You're honestly the first person who hasn't thrown me under a train."

Reed was quiet for a long time, just contemplating Hayes as he ran his hands through his hair. "I didn't know what to do, at first," he eventually said softly. "I don't even know why I left the bottle out in the open and didn't put it back. I wish I hadn't. Maybe you wouldn't have –"

"That wasn't your fault," Hayes said quickly, looking up at him. He shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't have to drink nearly an entire bottle of bourbon."

"In forty-five minutes."

Hayes resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He just had to point that out. "Is that really how long it was?"

Reed nodded. "I came back to your quarters as soon as I finished the search; only had a few left. I certainly wasn't expecting you to be semi-conscious."

"Where you trying to make me sweat?" Hayes asked. "I just want to know out of curiosity, I know full well you could just had Kipchoge and Cohen throw me in the brig," he continued quickly.

Reed slowly came over to the desk and leant against it. His leg was nearly touching Hayes. "I just wasn't expecting to find it in your quarters," he said. "I thought I'd find it in one of the younger enlisted quarters; I _thought_ someone was having a party. I, um…" He shrugged, crossing his arms again. "I guess I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt… I didn't really have a plan for afterwards."

Hayes nudged Reed's leg with his knee. "You didn't want to get me in trouble."

"It was just so unlike you, I wanted an explanation," Reed countered, shifting slightly. "And you'd been so quiet the couple of months beforehand…" He cleared his throat. "I just wanted an explanation."

Okay; so that was that. Hayes still wasn't entirely sure how long the Captain's patience was going to last, but he was sure that Reed wasn't about to kick him when he was down. In fact, if and when the Captain's patience did run out he might be able to count on Reed for help. It was a comforting thought.

"Trust me, it's just like me. It's not the first time I relapsed," he clarified. He stared down at the floor. "Kind of put my family through hell."

"It was ten years, wasn't it?" Reed asked softly. Hayes nodded still staring at the floor. "I think that's impressive."

Hayes laughed bitterly. "According to my grandparents I shouldn't have started drinking in the first place."

"According to my parents I shouldn't be afraid of water, should have joined the Royal Navy, and most importantly shouldn't be gay."

Hayes sighed and leaned back in the chair. "I honestly didn't know there was still people like that in the world."

A couple of weeks into the mission into the Expanse Reed had left his PADD down in the armoury – unlocked. Unfortunately Pfc. Jones, pissed off from the admittedly extensive ordinance training Reed was making him do, had found it, gone through it, and came across an email chain from Reed's parents. First, they'd asked him to reassure them that what his sister Madeline had told them wasn't true – he hadn't come out to her; that he wasn't gay. Reed insisted it was true and the email he received after that was pretty unpleasant reading. Jones printed off the emails and scattered them throughout the ship; everyone knew Reed was gay by breakfast and he wasn't seen in the armoury for two days. Hayes had seen him walking through the mess a couple of times, ashen faced with his head down, but he had taken all of his meals with Archer. No one dared asked any of the senior staff where he was; the only one who didn't look homicidal had been T'Pol. Apparently, Reed hadn't even told Tucker that he was gay.

Once Jones had been caught Captain Archer had him thrown in the brig for seven days for homophobic bullying and harassment of a superior officer. After that he'd been assigned to engineering for another week, where apparently Tucker had made his life hell. Hayes had wanted to make sure that Jones wasn't going to be mistreated, but the Captain had just threatened to have Hayes join him. That was the moment that the MACOs had figured out that for all his friendliness and approachability, the Captain was not someone you wanted to make angry. Hayes had already written him off as a soft touch, but his mind had quickly been changed. It had been T'Pol that had actually gone to the trouble to assure Hayes that Jones would just be running errands and carrying equipment from A to B. There had been a rumour that the engineering team had been calling him Messenger Pigeon for the week.

There had also been a rumour that Reed had spent two hours in Archer's ready room, sobbing. When she heard it, Hoshi had rather aggressively told – _ordered_ – people to shut their damn mouths – and none of the Fleeters dared say it out loud again. When she overheard a few of the MACOs still spreading it around… that was the moment the MACOs figured out that Hoshi was pretty scary too. It had honestly been a pretty tough situation for everyone to navigate, with the Fleeters obviously taking Reed's side, and the MACOs, while they didn't condone what Jones did, had thought that the Captain had overreacted. Hayes had been in two minds: he didn't appreciate that the Captain was disciplining someone on his team; on the other hand, as a gay man, he was appalled at Jones outing someone and kind of agreed with throwing Jones in the brig. But Jones hadn't understood the severity of what he'd did; homophobia was largely gone on Earth, he honestly understood that what he was doing was worse than just embarrassing a superior.

"Until I went to uni I didn't know there were people who accepted it. At least not that many," Reed said. "I can't even begin to describe the culture shock that it was."

"Really?"

Reed nodded, a memory of something flashing behind his eyes. "My uncle had all of our media very tightly controlled." Whatever that memory was, it wasn't good. "He kicked me out, you know." It was so quiet that Hayes nearly missed it. "When I was in my second last year of secondary school – high school to you – I was at a party with my cousin; there was drink, and I had a bit too much, and.. Callum saw me kissing a boy, told his father, and…" He took a deep breath. "Monday after school I came home to find my things on the pavement outside."

"I'm sorry," Hayes said. Even after he did The Thing, his family never kicked him to the curb. "That really sucks."

"I kept insisting I wasn't gay, though," Reed told him, laughing sullenly. "I was drunk, it was just something stupid I did because of the drink. I used to go drinking with my younger sister sometimes and the same thing would happen. She'd told me so many times that I really should stop doing that, or else people will think that I'm gay." He took another deep breath. "I don't know why I thought I could come out to her. It was idiotic. I was so _stupid_."

"The other day in therapy Phlox shot me with Nerf darts."

"I beg your pardon?" Reed just stared at Hayes, surprised at the abrupt change in subject.

"You've done CBT, right?"

"I have been treated for PTSD since I was nineteen, of course I've done CBT. And DBT, and psychotherapy, and umpteen others." He paused, brow furrowed. "Never have I ever been shot with Nerf darts."

"Well, every time I expressed a negative thought pattern Phlox shot me with a Nerf dart to get me to change my thinking." Reed just gave him a look. "You weren't stupid; it's not stupid to try and trust your family." He waved his hands to try and get Reed to say it. "Come on."

"It doesn't seem very smart."

"You're the smartest person I know." Hayes hadn't meant to say that.

Reed raised his eyebrows. "But you know Cmdr. T'Pol. You have met her, yes? First Officer and Science Officer? Has claimed Vulcan children have toys more sophisticated than Enterprise's systems? Short brown hair, pointy ears?"

"Oh is that who that is?" Hayes asked. "I was confused. Look lieutenant –"

"Just call me Malcolm."

Hayes tried to ignore the flutter in his chest. "Okay: Malcolm. You going to give it a go?"

"You're not going to let up until I do, are you?"

"Nope."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "It was not an idiotic idea, I should be able to rely on my family, but in hindsight it was not my best plan. There. How was that?"

"Very good," Hayes said, grinning. "Top-notch redirection. Well done."

"If you're going to be condescending about it, I'm going to borrow Phlox's Nerf gun."

"I think it can only be used by a trained medical professional."

That got a laugh. Hayes loved his laugh; the fact that it was so rare made it all the better when he got one. They just looked at each other for a moment; Hayes didn't miss the way Malcolm's eyes kept flicking to his lips. Hayes stood up, causing Malcolm to jump at the sudden movement.

"What are –"

But he was cut off by Hayes pressing his lips to his. Hayes braced himself on the desk either side of Malcolm, while Malcolm wrapped his arms around Hayes's shoulders and sat properly on the desk; Hayes moved his hands to Malcolm's waist as they broke apart, resting their foreheads together.

"Jackson…" Malcolm was breathless.

"Matthew," Hayes corrected. He tenderly kissed him again. "I use my middle name."

"Matthew then."

They didn't end up watching another episode of Band of Brothers.


	7. Why Do You Have the Dog?

Fuck everything.

Fuck exercise, fuck training, and fuck getting up. And fuck this damn ship while he was at it.

He should be in the mess right now. He should be grabbing a light snack. After that, he should be running a PT session with his entire team.

But fuck it.

Hayes lay in bed trying to make himself get up, but he didn't think he'd ever wanted to do anything less in his life. He should be a responsible adult; he should be a good leader; he should be _better _leader, at the very least; he should have the God damn will power to get out of this fucking bed.

But he doesn't.

He doesn't, so he just lays there, not even bothering to turn off his alarm. He glances at his clock: oh six hundred. He should already be in the gym, and he can picture his team, standing around in there, waiting for him: joking around and waiting for him to tell them to get to it. Ten minutes go by: but by now they've probably realised he's not coming and Ed has taken over. He's not needed. He reaches a hand out, grabs his alarm clock – a bright green Lego brick – and weakly flings it across the room. He hears it clatter on the floor as it bounces. It doesn't stop blaring.

He thinks about his team again. They should have a better leader. They deserve better. Ed would do a phenomenal job; Malcolm would as well, now that he's gotten his head out of his ass and actually wants to work with them. They sure as fuck don't deserve him. Oh God, Malcolm. He'd barely spoken to him yesterday or the day before. The memory of the other night replayed in his head. Malcolm probably regretted it. Why wouldn't he, what the fuck had Hayes been thinking? Malcolm had never been with a man before, not to mention he had fucking PTSD from the shit his sister inflicted on him as kids; and Hayes thought he would be able to reassure him, and comfort him, and make it all better. _Idiot_. He pulls his blanket over his head and wriggles down into his bed, trying to force himself back to sleep. He hears his door open but doesn't look up. He can tell, even with his eyes closed and his head covered that they've switched on the light. His alarm stopped sounding. Whoever it is can fuck off.

"You planning on joining us, Jackson?"

Hayes whips the blankets off his face. Captain Archer was standing in the middle of his quarters, Hayes's alarm clock in his hand. "Sir," he says stupidly. "I, ugh, I don't feel too great, to be honest. Sir." His words are awkward and clumsy. You know who wouldn't be clumsy? Malcolm. That man could talk is way into or out of anything. Hayes stays in bed, awkwardly making eye contact with his blank faced Captain. Like hell is he getting out of bed wearing only his shorts in front him.

"And you didn't feel like telling us?" Archer asked rhetorically. He was wearing his workout clothes, but he didn't seem out of breath. A couple of days into the mission to find the Xindi they'd encountered a problem – the capacity of the gym, combined with the MACOs PT schedule. Hayes could still remember the look of surprise on Malcolm's face as walked into the mess that morning to see a shark infestation. He'd soon been joined by some very confused Fleeters, including the entire senior staff and the doctor a few minutes later. Malcolm had had to make a trip into the galley to get more cereal and snacks, the only things out at that time of the morning. After quickly realizing what the problem was the Captain had given them the use of the gym for the hour Hayes had planned (thirty minutes at a time was the max allowed), and most Fleeters went to either the yoga class Ensign Hira was running (which had to be moved to a half full cargo bay), or to jog around B deck with Tucker. Some went back to bed. As Hayes had space in his plan a few of the more adventurous Fleeters, including the Captain and Mayweather, had joined them. They'd kept it up even a year later, and Hayes was pretty happy with the way the Captain's fitness had skyrocketed. Later on that day Hayes, Malcolm, and T'Pol had met to work out a schedule that wouldn't clog the place up every morning; and Hayes had been left feeling like a colossal idiot for thinking that the Fleeters wouldn't need to work out nearly as much as MACOs did, and no _way_ would that many of them be up _that_ early. He'd also not expected a single one of them to keep up with his workout, and yet Mayweather and Dunne had actually outperformed him – easily. _Idiot_. Tucker still teased them about having a shark infestation in the gym – there had been a lot of 'we're going to need a bigger ship' jokes going around that day, and Shark Tales had been that week's movie pick. The Captain told them Jaws wasn't an option – he thought it was mean.

"Really don't feel great, sir." _Nice. Real nice, Hayes_.

Archer said nothing for a moment. Hayes started to get annoyed, but he would be damned if he was going to show it to his CO. Why couldn't he just leave him alone? _Probably because it's his ship your wasting space on, not to mention his time_. Hayes swallowed and felt nauseous all of a sudden.

"Okay," the Captain said abruptly. He set the clock down on the desk. "See you later." He turned on heel and left without another word.

_Well, that was weird_, Hayes thought as he closed his eyes. _How the hell did he get away with that?_ Feeling like he now had permission to just lay in bed, he pulled the blanket up under his chin and curled on his side. He was almost beginning to doze again when –

"Thought you might need a cup of coffee."

The Captain was back, and talking louder than was strictly necessary, his voice an exaggeration of friendliness. "I'll just leave this here." He put a steaming cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin on Hayes's desk. "Okay, see you later." And then as suddenly as he'd come, was gone. Hayes stared at the closed door for a couple of minutes, in shock. He was just sure the Captain wasn't coming back and was contemplating eating the muffin when –

"You sure you got enough pillows? I brought you another, just in case." He threw it on Hayes face, and, still speaking too loudly, and too chirpily, and was already out the door with another "Okay, see you later" when Hayes pulled it to the side. He looked between the now closed door and the pillow next to him on the bed, and didn't even have time to formulate a thought when the door opened yet again.

"And a blanket, you always need a couple more blankets." 'A couple more' turned out to a large, messy plie of blankets, that the Captain unceremoniously dumped on Hayes, before flying out the door again ("Okay, see you later"). Hayes pushed them to the floor, and sat up. What the hell was going on here? Sitting on the edge of his bed, he ran his hands through his hair and just stared at the floor for a few minutes. What was the Captain playing at? He was certainly the oddest CO Hayes had ever had, but he'd figured that out before leaving space dock last year. Leaning his elbows on his knees he looked at his alarm clock and was relieved he hadn't broken it. He remembered telling Malcolm, months ago around Christmas, that his favourite toy had been Legos as a kid; he'd been secretly thrilled when Malcolm had plonked a wrapped box down in front of him over dinner on his birthday last month, but that didn't even compare to how he felt when he opened it and realised that he'd remembered the story. Like a dumb teenager when their crush notices them. He didn't think he could face Malcolm if he'd actually broken it. He was shaken out of those guilty thoughts by the door opening, yet again.

"Since you're not doing anything else, would you mind watching Porthos for me?" The Captain didn't even wait for a reply, just handed him the beagle.

"Sir –"

"Bring him back to me around oh seven, would you? He's been fed; shouldn't need to pee. I'll be in the Captain's Mess. Thanks. Okay, see you later." And he blew out, as fast he blew in. Hayes just started open mouthed at where the Captain had been a few moments ago, until he got a jolt from something wet nudging his jaw. Porthos's nose. He looked down at the dog he was holding to his bare chest and let him start licking his face.

"Your dad is weird, you know that, right?" He got hit by wet nose. "I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

He'd survived Lunar training; he'd led countless incursions against the Xindi; and hardest of all, he survived working with the man with whom his relationship could only be described as a weird cross between 'fuck you' and 'I'd fuck you'. And it was obviously much more on the 'I'd fuck you' side of things now. He should be able to walk across the mess hall, knock on the Captain's mess's door, and enter, like a grown up, and face his punishment. But no, here he was, standing outside the mess, just far enough down the corridor that he wouldn't be seen like he was lurking if anyone came out, like a complete tool. It didn't help that he was holding a beagle.

Not that he had anything against Porthos; he actually wished he had the courage to steal the dog sometimes like a lot of the crew did, but he was conscious of the fact that the dog would act like a magnet for the others and give them an excuse to stop and talk to him. And that was far from what he wanted at the moment. Porthos whined.

"What, you want to go in?" Another whine. "Give me a minute." He scratched Porthos under the chin with the hand closest to it. The dog started to wiggle.

"I know, I know, I'm being ridiculous." Porthos barked. "Yeah, yeah, watch the negative language, I know." Another bark. "Hey, I don't like lurking out here anymore than you do. I don't really want to get caught with you either, you know." Porthos started making a weird nose that Hayes couldn't identify. "Because what plausible explanation could I have for having the damn dog at this time in the morning?"

Even what had actually happened didn't seem plausible – he had refused to get out of bed, so his CO had handed him his dog? They'd think he was drunk. But regardless of how weird it had been – or maybe because of it – he'd managed to get himself showered, shaved, and dressed once the Captain had left, and even brought the pillow and blankets back to the store room he assumed the Captain had gotten them from; all in the time allotted to him by the Captain. He actually felt productive. Until he arrived outside the mess hall and his nerve failed him and instead of just going in he'd loitered like a coward. He'd already done a lap of the deck, telling himself he was early and needed to kill time. He wished the Captain had just punished him earlier and not kept him waiting around like this.

Porthos stared at him. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I was meant to be in there five minutes ago; you're a dog with no concept of time keeping, stop judging me."

"Oh, he definitely can keep time."

_Crap_. Hayes whirled around to see Tucker walking towards him and the knot in his stomach got tighter. How much did he know? Oh God, how much had he heard?

"Dogs know exactly when their owners are meant to come home, and feed them, and all the rest of it; they just don't understand that dinner is at six." Tucker had reached them and started rubbing the dog's head with both hands. He looked up at Hayes. "I heard they missed you this morning."

"Needed a rest day, sir." The prepared lie came easily. It would want to, he'd been reciting it to himself since he got up. "Think I've been overdoing it a bit."

Tucker didn't say anything, just looked Hayes dead in the eye, with one hand on the dog's head. Hayes started to sweat. _He's not buying it_. But he didn't break eye contact, his face completely blank as he stared Tucker down.

"Are you okay?" Tucker asked eventually, his brow furrowed. Hayes assumed he was annoyed that he felt he had to ask. Like everyone else he'd ever disappointed – how dare he have an issue? How dare he need help? Hayes agreed, but that was beside the point.

"Just have to watch what I lift, sir," Hayes replied, resisting the urge to take a deep breath.

"No, I mean…" Tucker trailed off, finally breaking eye contact. When he looked back his face was open, with an emotion Hayes couldn't identify written all over it. "It's just I know that Malcolm is a little bit worried about you, and Hoshi says she thinks you've been quieter than normal…" He left that hanging in the air before he continued. What the hell had Malcolm been saying about him? "And I kind of thought you were a bit off the other week, when we were playing poker. Are you dealing with everything okay?"

And there it was. Sure, he was 'concerned'. Right. Hayes could count the number of superiors who actually gave a damn on one hand – it was all lip service, an ass covering exercise so that they could say they gave him all the help they possibly could when he eventually drank himself to death; or fucked up so badly that someone else got hurt.

"I mean, I know we don't know each other all that well, but if you need to grab a cup of coffee or anything, I just wanted to let you know I'm here," Tucker continued. Hayes had heard that before. He'd actually taken a few of his superiors up on that offer in the past – when he was fresh out of the Point and hadn't learned how to recognise the insincerity yet. And here was this fucking Fleeter engine rat trying the same bullshit; like fuck was Hayes going to fall for it.

Hayes kept his thought off his face, with well-practiced ease. "Thank you sir, but I'm doing just fine." He was about to turn and finally head into the mess when Tucker spoke again.

"You know that's what I kept saying after my sister passed." Hayes froze. He didn't think he'd ever heard Tucker mention his sister; he wasn't even sure what her name was; Hayes felt a sliver of shame slide into his stomach – he should probably know that. Tucker continued, oblivious. "I actually bit Malcolm's head off a couple of times, and all he was trying to do was make sure I was dealing. I eventually talked about it, but…" He shrugged. He finally took his hands off of Porthos and held them up in a shrug. "I wish I'd done it sooner. What I'm trying to get at, in a roundabout way, is that the Captain, and the entire Senior Staff, take our duty of care towards the crew very, very seriously – and that includes everyone dressed like a Shark." Tucker grinned. "Even you; so if you need to take me up on that coffee, I'll be around. Unless, you know, the engine's about to blow, then I'll have to take a rain check."

Hayes was speechless. After a moment he managed to stupidly get out "Yeah, uh, yeah, that-that sounds good –"

Tucker clapped Hayes on the shoulder. "Great, you busy around ten thirty?"

"Sir?"

"Yeah, I know Malcolm likes to take a tea break around then. I'll meet you here." And with a smile, he side-stepped Hayes and headed towards the mess. He glanced over his shoulder, and jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Captain probably wants his dog back."

Hayes followed numbly. Well, he could also count on one hand the number of times _that_ had happened. Tucker bade him goodbye to take a seat with Cpl. Cole and Malcolm, as Hayes made straight for the other side of the room making no eye contact with anyone. He realised just before he rang the bell what that look that Tucker had been giving him was. He glanced around the where he was sitting with Malcolm and Cole, and all three of them ducked their heads quickly. Hayes whipped back around and rang the bell, ignoring the flush he could feel creeping up his neck. Back straight, eyes dead ahead; he entered when called, put the dog down gently, and stood at attention. "Captain, Sir." Nice and snappy; his grandparents would be proud_. Grasping at straws, there? You're here to get yelled at._

"Are you going to eat breakfast like that?" the Captain asked, reaching down to pet Porthos. He then poured juice into the glasses in front of him, as he asked Hayes to take a seat. He did so, but did not lose his composure for a moment. Back straight, eyes forward; he resisted the urge to examine the place settings. What the hell was the Captain doing? "Unclench, major; it's just breakfast."

Hayes looked around as one of the stewards – Johnson? – brought in two plates of eggs Benedict, but other than that kept his posture. "This is your favourite, right?" The Captain waited until Johnson(?) had left before speaking.

"It is, sir." Hayes glanced down at the plate, and then stared straight ahead. He was being set up. He was being set up, and the Captain was going to use this to help throw the book at him. _You got a nice lie in, pawned your responsibilities off on your deputy, and now you get your favourite breakfast, aren't you special?_ He was starting to feel ill, and lightheaded, but was doing his best not to show it. He gripped his hands tightly together on the table in front of him so they wouldn't shake. He really wished the Captain would just get this over with.

The Captain had been silent for a few minutes but had kept his eyes on Hayes the entire time; Hayes could feel his gaze burning a hole in him; he was waiting for him to crack, obviously, but Hayes was not going to make things worse by speaking before being spoken to. "Okay," the Captain finally said slowly. "Let me break down what is going to happen here: we are going to eat our breakfast, and we are going to have little chat about what happened this morning." He paused, but then continued emphatically, "What is not going to happen is a reprimand; I'm not going to give you a slap on the wrist; I'm not even going to lecture you a little bit. But we need to seriously speak about your place on this ship."

Somehow, that was worse. Like he wasn't even worth the effort of getting angry or delivering a proper rebuke. It normally came before he was transferred to some office posting that he _needed_ to drink to survive in. He'd worked so hard to get out of that environment – he'd signed up for every extra training seminar, every weapons demo, put more hours than _anyone_ on the range and in the gym, and applied every year, every God damn year, for Special Operations and after seven years of being the Perfect Soldier, he'd done it. And he came out on top; he'd made major; he'd been given command of the MACO contingent that Captain Archer himself had requested aboard his ship.

And then he ruined it, as he should have known he'd do eventually.

"I'm sure I could be transferred back to Earth quite easily, sir." Not that he wanted that. Or did he? It's not like anyone would miss him, not really; Ed could finally get that promotion; there had been talk of him taking over the MACO contingent on Columbia, when she finally launched, but that was just rumours. He should just be sent back to Earth, and have done with it. He was starting to hate this place, anyway.

_But then who would drive you to distraction by taking your toys apart? Whose pretty blue eyes would you be hoping to see all lit up each day?_

Okay, maybe there was one person he'd miss, and who might miss him…

The Captain picked up his knife and fork. "Didn't I tell you part of this was going to involve eating breakfast? Dig in." Hayes did as he was told, like a good soldier. "Don't get me wrong," The Captain continued, "What happened this morning cannot become a habit. But for the minute I am not making plans to get rid of you. If you don't say anything this is going to become a lecture, and I already said I don't want that," he said, when Hayes remained silent.

Hayes swallowed his food. "All I can really say, sir, is that I apologise, and to assure you it won't happen again; if you are giving me another chance."

"Great; now what exactly are you apologising for?"

The Captain's tone wasn't severe. It was actually very calm and even, and Hayes didn't know how to deal with it. He didn't even know how to answer the question exactly. He went blank. The training session was mandatory for MACOs, but because Hayes had made it so, not the Captain. By not showing up, he didn't technically have to answer to the Captain for it anymore than anyone else he was running PT for. "For shirking my responsibilities this morning; I had people relying on me to show up, and I chose not to."

"Why not?" The Captain took a swig of his juice. He didn't sound accusatory; instead he seemed genuinely curious. Gentle, even. Hayes was still waiting for the other boot to drop.

"I don't have a good answer for that, sir."

"So, what, you just didn't want to?" The Captain still didn't sound pissed off. That was probably going to change any second now.

"I guess, so. Sir." Neither of them said anything as the Captain ate, Hayes just following suit. As far as last meals went, it wasn't a bad one. Was the Captain waiting for something? Did he think Hayes was going to dig himself an even bigger hole if he just kept talking? Well, what was more damning than saying that he hadn't shown up when needed for no other reason than he 'didn't want to'? He jumped when the Captain next spoke.

"I'm going to level with you Jackson: this situation is severely testing my ability to balance pragmatism with compassion." _Time to pack your bags; time to be sent home in disgrace. _"What I said the other week hasn't changed: I want to see you through this, I want you to get better, and I am willing to give you whatever assistance you need to get that done." He drank some of his juice. "Now, if we were closer to Earth, I'd consider sending you back to get intensive treatment, but we're too far out for that to be an option. Unless you want to take an extended leave of absence, in which case I can make arrangements and we can have you back here in a few months; it's up to you. Is that something that appeals to you?"

He was serious. He would actually send him home to get better, but Hayes wasn't so sure he'd just welcome him back with open arms. In the past, every time he'd messed up he'd just been reassigned to 'a less stressful environment', with a new CO who knew exactly why he'd been reassigned, was not happy about having a drunk under his command and got rid of him at the first opportunity. Or maybe he would be, what the hell did he know. He was still only eighty percent sure that the Captain wasn't about to start yelling. It could be a good idea, going back to Earth for a few months; he could check in with his sponsor, see his family – actually maybe not. "I think I'll try and stick it out, sir." _Closer to Lt. Pretty Eyes…_

The Captain nodded, and to Hayes's surprise seemed pleased. "Good; good." He smiled, kindly. It actually reached his eyes. "I've spoken to Lt. Reed, he says your performance hasn't slipped, you're seeing Phlox regularly…" He paused to allow Hayes to confirm he'd seen Phlox several times so far. "So, as far as I am concerned the situation is currently under control."

Hayes hesitated before asking. "About away missions?"

The Captain had just taken a big bite of eggs. He shook his head and waved that idea away. "Out of the question for the minute. Just give yourself some time," He quickly cut Hayes off. "I trust your not getting sloshed every night, but I need Phlox to tell me your in a good headspace before I put you back on the ground."

He expected that, but he'd gotten away with so much today, what could asking hurt. Hayes didn't know if he wanted to ask this next question, or if he really wanted to hear the answer. "Sir, may I ask –"

"Why am I being so lenient?"

"Yes, sir."

Captain Archer put his knife and for down, and placed his fingertips together, elbows on the table. "I watched my father deteriorate at a rapid rate from a neurodegenerative disease as a child; he couldn't even remember me on his death bed. And after the Expanse…" He paused and briefly ducked his head. When he looked up at Hayes there was a soft, open look on his face. "Do you honestly think I've never had days where I cannot physically get out of bed?"

Hayes forcibly swallowed the lump in his throat. "I guess I never…" He trailed off, staring at his barely touched breakfast. He slowly looked up. "I guess I never actually thought about it." The realisation had hit Hayes like a quantum torpedo. Captain Archer was serious. He was seriously more interested in helping Hayes than getting rid of him so as to have an easy life. He had to fight the urge to run out of there, instead hiding his eyes with one hand, pretending he was trying to fight off a sudden headache. He scrunched up his eyes against the onslaught and managed to fend it off, for the most part. After a moment he took a deep, gasping, breath and looked up wiping his eyes.

Captain Archer handed him a napkin, which Hayes gratefully took and dabbed at his nose.

"Jackson, please tell me that means I've actually gotten through to you?"

"Matthew."

"I beg your pardon?"

Hayes looked up at him. "I use my middle name, sir. It's Matthew."

"Okay Matthew; please tell me that you actually believe I want to help you?"

"Yes sir; and… and thank you."

"Don't mention it. Now eat your eggs, they're going cold."


	8. Want Some Coffee?

Hayes still couldn't believe that he was having this conversation with Captain Archer; it was long after eight, and Hayes had already ended up telling him how he was worried about what his team was going to think of him if they found out, and how he wasn't entirely comfortable with how much extra work he was piling on Malcolm and Ed. And he knew that a lot of people were worried about him, he'd overheard them for God's sake, and he didn't like feeling like he was a distraction and a source of stress. It didn't help that he didn't like the attention.

Captain Archer for his part did his best to reassure him and ended up explaining that this was actually pretty standard operating procedure for Starfleet in event of illness – both physical and mental. He'd done something similar for Malcolm after he'd been outed, Captain Archer knew Hayes was aware he had been having panic attacks over it; he also had to accommodate a couple of other crewmembers in the past, though he didn't name them, and he even told Hayes about how just after he'd joined Starfleet he'd sunk into a depression and how the medication they'd put him on had messed with him for about a month before settling. His CO at the time, then Captain Forrest, had actually let him take naps in the middle of the day when he first went on it – the drowsiness had been that bad.

"And I was an ensign who'd just finished OCS about a month previously," Archer explained. OCS being Officer Candidate School, the twelve week program run by the United Earth Air Force that trained Starfleet hopefuls; until 2140 candidates with a bachelor's degree could apply for OCS to receive officer training. Both Archer and Tucker had joined Starfleet that way.

"I was part-time for about another month, so I could fit in doctor's appointments and get enough rest," he continued. He was struck by a sudden thought. "Once, I was leaving early to get to the pharmacy, and I couldn't find the train timetable; had a meltdown. Something as simple as that, right? Anyway, one of my colleagues, Lt. Kim, found me, looked up the train times for me, and then walked me to my stop." He reached behind him to ring the bell for one of the stewards and asked for more coffee. "Anyway, I'm leaving the pharmacy and my mom is there waiting for me – turns out Kim told Forrest and he rang her to let her know I was having a bad day. And," he waved a teaspoon in Hayes's direction. "Forrest made sure to check on me the next day."

"Was this the NX Project, sir?" Hayes asked.

"No, this was a good six years before that," Archer told him. "We were testing the orbit to atmosphere capabilities of these small warp one vessels, trying to work out the aerodynamics for reentry for various atmospheric conditions. I did an awful lot of ground control, though Forrest watched me like a hawk."

"Were you okay with that? Someone looking over your shoulder the whole time?"

Archer chuckled. "I was twenty-three, felt like I was losing my mind, and terrified that I was going to make the pilot crash – no, I didn't really have a problem with Forrest being able to jump right on in. Spent quite a good bit of time analysing the flight telemetry as well, and put in time with the engineering team but I got back in the pilot's seat eventually."

Just listening to him talk was really making Hayes feel a lot better, and a lot calmer. If that hadn't stopped Archer from being accepted on to the NX Project, never mind commanding the Enterprise, Hayes was getting pretty confident he wasn't about to have everything he'd worked so hard for taken away from him. Hayes even felt comfortable enough to tell him how he'd stopped drinking in forty-three and before that his record had been four years, from thirty-five to thirty-nine. He stopped short of telling him what had broken his sobriety, though. He avoided thinking about her as much as possible, but it was nearly August and that was always a bad month. All of thirty-nine, the entire year, was pretty much a blur though Hayes was sure that he'd avoided a court martial by the skin of his teeth. Or more likely his grandparents' connections.

Archer told him a few more stories from the NX Project, and from the early days of Starfleet; the organisation had been two years old when Archer joined, which meant that it had still been finding its feet. Most of the higher ups were ex-MACO, Navy, and Air Force – Admiral Forrest had actually flown search and rescue for years with the Canadian Air Force – and Archer had been part of the first twenty to go through OCS. Tucker had been one of the last. Malcolm often complained that he had a damn bachelor's and still had to do three years at the academy; he, Hoshi, and Travis were the classes of '47, '48, and '49 respectively.

"I'm sorry, I am doing most of the talking," Archer eventually said, apologetically.

"I really don't mind, sir, I like listening," Hayes told him. And it was true; Archer was charismatic and a good storyteller. Hayes knew it was the main reason the crew never let him forget the Gazelles Speech – it amused them that the Great Orator had made a speech _that bad_.

"Then you should get Trip talking, he's almost as bad as me," Archer joked, knocking back the last of his coffee. "But you know who's a great listener? T'Pol."

That surprised Hayes. "Cmdr. T'Pol, sir?" He hadn't imagined that she would care enough to pay attention to any of the crew for very long. Maybe Tucker, or Hoshi, but that was it.

"The very same." He continued as though he knew what Hayes was thinking. "Don't let the aloof exterior fool you, she gives far more than a damn about her crew mates. And I've come to realise and appreciate that it's always a good idea to get the Vulcan perspective on things. The Denobulan point of view as well, while we're at it." The Captain stood, Hayes following suit. "Infinite diversity, in infinite combinations. It's a good motto; and I'm not just saying that because I had Surak's Katra in my head."

Archer clapped Hayes on the shoulder as they entered the now empty mess, each going their separate ways at the turbolift. Hayes was thankful that the Captain hadn't mentioned Surak before the very end of their talk; he knew he could talk about that for quite a while.

Now all he had to do was survive his talk with Tucker.

* * *

Tucker smiled and raised a hand in greeting as Hayes entered the mess. He nodded in return and gestured to the drinks dispenser, before grabbing himself a cup of coffee. There was only Lt. Cmdr. Tachibana in front of him, staring intently at a PADD while drinking her tea. There were very few people in the mess, about ten others with teas and coffees in front of them. He'd been trying to come up with an excuse to cut this short, especially seeing as Reed had told him he could take an hour as opposed to the normal thirty minutes. He didn't need an hour with Tucker, God dammit, he was fine!

_People who are fine don't cry in front of their CO, _that stupid voice pointed out. _Yeah, and they don't relapse either or snap like a douche-bag at the guy they like,_ Hayes agreed. They also didn't talk to themselves. Or beagles.

After taking far too long putting sugar into his coffee and making sure that it was dissolved, Hayes strode over to Tucker's table and sat down. "How're you doing, commander?"

"Can't complain, though I have a few plasma relays vying for my attention when I get back," Tucker replied shrugging. He had a plate of cookies in front of him, which he pushed towards Hayes. "Help yourself."

"Did you pick up this habit from Ma-Lt. Reed?" Hayes asked, taking one, but instead of taking a bite he just held it in his hand.

Tucker smiled. "Do you know how many boxes of English biscuits and tea leaves he actually had Chef put away?"

Hayes returned to the smile. "I know Capt. Eddison isn't complaining." Okay, this was fine; he could keep this up for an hour. "I think the two of them have a slight caffeine addiction." _Better caffeine than booze…_

Shooting the breeze was never something that Hayes had a problem with, normally able to bullshit about almost anything. Normally; lately it seemed that he couldn't even carry a conversation with Hoshi – and talking to people was her job. What had the Captain said? Tucker liked to talk, so all he had to do was keep him talking and hopefully he wouldn't expect much from Hayes. Not that anyone can expect much from him right now. He internally cringed at how he'd seen Malcolm looking at him when he'd stuck his head into the armoury for a couple of minutes that morning; he'd asked him last night over messenger if Hayes had wanted to get lunch and all Hayes had replied was _sure_. And then he hadn't replied when Malcolm had asked what time he was planning on taking lunch. He'd barely given him much more over the last few days, and he knew full well that Malcolm deserved better than that. But he kept all of that off of his face as he chatted to Tucker, and the conversation turned to sport after a few minutes. Tucker was excitedly telling him that Hoshi should be getting her hands on some of the latest NASCAR events pretty soon.

"I'm just glad I got to see the cup before we left," Trip told him.

"Do they have year round events?" Hayes asked, just to keep the conversation going. NASCAR actually bored him to tears.

"Oh yeah, all over the world," Tucker told him. "But my brother and brother-in-law took us to Daytona all the time when we were growing up."

"Your brother?" Hayes hadn't known he had a brother.

"Yeah, Albert's eight years older than me, and he and Miguel started datin' when they were around sixteen." Tucker dunked a cookie in his coffee. "Used to take Elizabeth and I on trips all the time."

_Elizabeth, that was her name_. Hayes had thought it was Emily, Emma, or something else with an E. "There's a bit of an age gap between myself and my youngest sister, Harper." Hayes often pretended that he only had Quinn, Piper, Parker, and Harper. It saved all the awkward questions. "I used to take her to the waterpark all the time; she _loved_ it."

"And you didn't?" Tucker ribbed him.

"Sure, when I didn't have to stick to the kiddie slides." That was actually true; he and his full siblings used to take their maternal half-siblings around San Diego and on some of the hiking trails when their mom visited her parents. They'd lived close by Hayes's paternal grandparents, and used to take them some weekends if Dolores and Elliot felt like they needed a break. Often, it coincided with when his Dad and Step-mom left their kids with them.

"Elizabeth was three years younger than me," Trip said, a nostalgic look coming over his face. "There was this old-fashioned movie theatre not far from our house; if I was ever going and wasn't bringing her, she'd start screaming until I brought her." He looked down, smiling sadly. "Man, she loved movies."

"You seem to have that in common," Hayes pointed out, softly. This was one of the reasons that he didn't really want to talk to Tucker – he didn't want to bring up his late sister but knew he'd be the biggest ass in the sector if he changed the subject. He really did not want to talk about dead sisters. "What kind of movies did she like?"

"All the old ones, same as me." Tucker paused. "It was actually why I stopped doing movie night for a while, but you know what, it's important for morale."

Hayes knew that the Xindi weapon had ripped right through Tucker's hometown; he wondered if that movie theatre was even still there anymore. But thinking about the Xindi was making him sweat, so he tried to think of a change of subject without it seeming too obvious. He was about to ask what Tucker was planning for movie night this week when –

"And speaking of morale," _oh God, no_… "How's your team been since we got back from the Expanse?"

_Wait, what?_ "Oh, they're, uh, they're doing okay." Nobody had obviously cracked that Hayes had noticed. Except for him.

"Good," Tucker said, eating a cookie. "I know you guys didn't have to go through psych evals when we got back; not going to lie, I thought that was pretty strange."

"Nobody appeared to be having any problems," Hayes lied. "It didn't seem necessary." And besides, he would probably have been caught.

"But don't you do a yearly psych eval anyway?" Tucker pressed.

He was not going to let this go. "No, just a physical, a fitness test, and combat readiness tests." _Please let it go, please let it go, please let it go… _

Tucker shook his head. "That just seems really strange to me, especially since we see some weird stuff out here. Space is big, a lot of it's empty, and what's not empty is alien."

"I will drink to that," Hayes said, clinking his mug against Tuckers.

Tucker bit his bottom lip, considering something. "So what's going on with you and Malcolm?" he said abruptly.

Hayes was startled. What had Malcolm told him? He wasn't embarrassed of course, but he didn't really think it was appropriate that his superior knew about his personal life. But then again, said superior was the best friend of his hopefully soon-to-be boyfriend, and Malcolm was close to rest of the senior staff as well… oh fuck, did the Captain know?

Hayes decided to play dumb. _Like that's hard for you_. Hayes told that voice to fuck off, he was not listening to it or its bullshit today. "I don't know what you mean, sir."

Tucker shrugged, and then tried to look intimidating. "He said he thought that you were ignoring him over breakfast today, so I thought that I'd kill two birds with one stone here: check in on you, and give you the shovel talk."

Hayes laughed. "If this is the part where you threaten to hurt me if I hurt him, I'm pretty sure Malcolm knows a variety of ways of killing me with a variety of weapons. So, with all due respect commander, I am way more afraid of him than I am of you."

"And I know a variety of ways of making the body disappear."

"Let me guess, chop me up and use me for fuel?"

Tucker leaned back in his chair, nonchalant. "That's only one of 'em."

They stared at each other for a moment, and Hayes was actually starting to get nervous. Was he going to tell him to stay away from Malcolm? Did he not think he was good enough for him? He remembered Malcolm telling him the other night as they lay in bed afterwards that Malcolm had thought that he wasn't attracted to him. Hayes had burst out laughing. What if Tucker thought he was using him or something? His thoughts were cut off by Tucker starting to laugh.

"Ease up, I'm only messin' with you." He leaned forward again, and drank more coffee. "Sort of. But in all seriousness, maybe send a message his way?"

"Yes, sir." A knot was starting to form in Hayes stomach. Malcolm wouldn't be back in the armoury until after lunch, so Hayes wouldn't have the opportunity to just ask him in person. And there was no guarantee that he'd see a personal message before lunch, but it was all that was left for Hayes to do.

"So, that other thing that I wanted to talk to you about," Tucker said, seriously. _Oh boy, here it comes_. "I was looking over the specs for the LR28s and I more importantly, what kind of mods Malcolm wants to do to 'em. I know shooting 'em might be more your thing, but I was wondering if you wanted to give us a hand." _Wait, what?_

"Us, as in…?"

"As in myself and Malcolm."

More time with Malcolm? Sign Hayes up. But did Tucker actually think that he would be able to keep up with them? Hayes knew the basics, but Malcolm and Tucker's knowledge was a whole other level.

"I don't know sir, I mean, it looks interesting…" And it did; Hayes was always fascinated looking at Malcolm examining and taking things apart, but never asked him any questions for fear of looking stupid. He was pretty envious of the way some of the enlisted and more junior officers could just pepper him with questions without that insecurity. And if he was honest, he kind of did want to get to understand the mechanics of his ordinance a little bit better; once, they'd been on an away mission and Chang's rifle had been damaged; Hayes had had a look and had written it off, but Malcolm had taken it off of him, taken a very small toolkit out of his pocket and repaired it in thirty minutes. It was an incredibly handy skill to have.

"Come on, Malcolm said you knew a ton about 'em already, from when you gave him that tutorial."

That had been weeks ago! And Tucker remembered that? Malcolm had _told_ Tucker that? But, yeah, he had done his research on the rifle but he wasn't confident that he could gut it and put it back to together like Malcolm and Tucker could. Hell, sometimes Malcolm couldn't put it back together at all; he'd very sheepishly apologised to Hayes more than once for the state of his ordinance. But considering the improvements he often made, Hayes considered it an acceptable roll of the dice.

"It'll be fun," Tucker tried to convince him.

"I don't know if I'll be able to keep up, sir." Hayes confessed.

Tucker waved that away. "Sure you will; and if you don't get anything just ask us, we don't bite."

Hayes actually knew that under certain circumstances, Malcolm kind of did, but he wasn't going to tell Tucker that. And he definitely wasn't going to show him the bite mark on his chest. "I'll probably just get in your way."

"If you were going to be in the way, I wouldn't be asking you to join us," Tucker insisted.

It wouldn't be a bad idea, especially if he was able to make repairs on the fly to extent Malcolm was… he agreed to it, leaving Tucker looking pretty happy. He dropped it after that, telling him that he'd let him know when he and Malcolm had put aside a time and they more or less just talked nonsense for the rest of the hour.

It was nice.


	9. I'm a Disaster

"I don't know what happened, I really thought I was getting better."

It was after lunch and Hayes had decided to pay a visit to Phlox. He actually had ended up eating with with Malcolm, but purely by chance – along with Hoshi, T'Pol, and Pfc. Hamboyan, meaning that he couldn't get a moment alone to speak to him and apologise for the radio silence over the last couple of days. And he was positive Malcolm was upset about it; he barely looked at him all through lunch, though Hayes did catch him glancing at him out of the corner of his eye once or twice.

Phlox was shining a light in Hayes's eyes, alternating from one to the other. "And how often in the last month have you found it difficult to get out of bed?" Phlox started taking Hayes's blood pressure with what he explained was an old fashioned automatic blood pressure cuff.

Hayes was just sitting up on the bed, letting Phlox examine him; Phlox had insisted on doing a full exam once he came in as he just said he wasn't feeling too great, and didn't give him much more to go on; Phlox had said that he wanted to make sure Hayes wasn't having any side effects from the antidepressants. He'd asked Hayes if he minded doing things the old fashioned way, as Phlox had wanted the chance to practice using some of his instruments; Hayes had already seen all of Phlox's older equipment, as in one of their earliest therapy sessions Phlox had made a point of showing him them all; he'd caught Hayes having a look at them while he was waiting for Phlox and gave him a quick run through of how they all worked. Hayes had been fascinated, and really didn't mind if Phlox wanted to practice on him. He had something on his index finger that was apparently measuring the amount of oxygen in his blood, and Phlox had already taken his temperature by sticking a glass tube full of mercury in his mouth. He'd started telling him about what had happened this morning once Phlox took it back, and checked the accuracy of the thing with another electronic thermometer that he'd stuck in Hayes's ear.

"It happens a lot, but never as bad as this morning," Hayes explained as Phlox took off the cuff. After his chat with Archer, he'd decided that it was okay if he took some time to come see Phlox when he needed to. If he needed to see his doctor, then he needed to see his doctor, he had every right to, and that was that. At least, that was what he'd been telling himself the entire way to sick bay. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Not a thing.

And if he kept telling himself that then he would believe it eventually.

"One twenty-three over eighty-seven, perfectly normal. Have you been late for your duty shifts in the last month? Now, follow my finger but don't move your head."

"No, but I might have skipped the gym a few times," Hayes admitted guiltily, tracking Phlox's finger with his eyes.

"And what do you think of Captain Archer's approach to the situation?" Phlox moved behind him and started feeling the lymph nodes in his neck and head. "Do you remember what I said this node was called."

"Submental, isn't it?" Whenever Hayes came in with some kind of bug, Phlox would feel his neck and head, naming the lymph nodes as he went. Hayes had been able to name all of them after listening to this about twice.

"Indeed it is; and it feels perfectly normal. But back to my question?" Phlox started looking in his ear.

"I feel a lot better about the whole situation, to be honest. I get he's not going to rush me and I really appreciate him going out of his way. Everyone's been great, honestly." He cocked his head to let Phlox look in the other ear. He kind of wondered what the hell the meds could possibly doing to his ear canal, or if Phlox just wanted to use his twentieth century Earth otoscope. He strongly suspected the latter. "But I still don't like how much extra work I am for Malcolm and Ed, and I'm still terrified of General Casey or Colonel Ives finding out though."

"And what do you think will happen if your superiors in MACO do find out? Surely you wouldn't be penalized? Can you touch your nose and then touch my finger? Good, and again."

Hayes obeyed. "What's this testing?"

"Cerebellar lesions; it would affect your coordination," Phlox said, moving his finger and having Hayes chase him with his own. "But what would happen if the general were to find out?"

Hayes let his hand flop down into his lap. "I'd be recalled to Earth; they can't have an officer potentially embarrass MACO like this – or worse, get someone killed."

"Are you quite sure?" Phlox frowned. "It did take quite a lot to convince you that the Captain and Lt. Reed were on your side."

Hayes shrugged, and glanced away, avoiding looking at Phlox. "I'm positive."

"Hmm…" Phlox just looked at him for a moment. "Could you run your heel up and down the opposite shin for me? With your eyes closed, please."

Hayes complied. He was beginning to think that Phlox was just messing with him. "What's this for?"

"Testing your coordination. How do you feel about coming to Captain Archer for help in the future?"

"I feel a lot better about it; I'm actually pretty sure he's got my back. Every time I've tried to get help from my CO in the past, I've ended up reassigned to somewhere 'less stressful' or put on forced leave." He stopped rubbing his shin with his heel and opened his eyes. "This is the first time I don't feel like I'm being punished for having a problem or asking for help." He narrowed his eyes at Phlox, the realisation dawning on him. "Are you just doing a full exam just to distract me enough to keep talking?"

"Yes, and it's working." Phlox stopped taking Hayes's pulse, clasping his hands in front of him.

Hayes rolled his eyes. "You do know I've already told you more than I've told any other therapist, ever, right?"

"And I am gratified by your trust." Phlox smiled at him, but then turned slightly more business-like. "And we have our next session tomorrow; I was wondering if you would like to discuss your injury, hmm? We've touched on it, but have yet to discuss it in any great detail."

Because Hayes didn't want to think about it. He wanted to think about getting shot and nearly dying even less than he wanted to talk or even think about Sadie.

"It happened, you patched me up, I don't see what there is to talk about," Hayes said calmly, but he could feel his palms starting to sweat. And he knew he wasn't fooling Phlox; very little did, he'd quickly found out.

"Because it was one of the more traumatic events to happen to you over the course of our mission," Phlox said gently. "And you did relapse almost immediately afterwards; you've mentioned before that you didn't want to have to think about anything when we returned to Earth, and I inferred that your injury is one of those things."

"And I've received the training to able to handle that," Hayes insisted. What he hadn't been trained for was how to deal with people he was responsible for dying left, right, and centre. Or how he had been convinced that he was going to die, pass out, only to wake up days later to be told that the _Captain_ was dead. Hayes had started to think that he was invincible, and had the weird sense that they'd somehow traded places for a few days. Alright, it was a few weeks, but Captain Archer had survived, he was _fine_ and he even ended something called the Temporal Cold War, which the crew took great delight in detailing to the MACOs – it was one of those times that they were convinced the Fleeters were messing with them; but in general he liked listening to the talk about some of the craziness that went on. But his injury? No, no he didn't want to talk about that, he didn't even want to _think_ about –

Oh. Okay, Phlox may have had a point. "But I don't want to talk about it," Hayes insisted. "Plenty of other people were injured, not just me."

"But we're not talking about them are we?" Phlox said, kindly. "And comparing yourself to others, don't make me get the Nerf gun." He smiled widely. "But if it's not something you want to speak of, I will of course respect that boundary."

_Respect his boundary_. He'd that from past therapists plenty of times. Most of them did, but one had gone behind his back to complain to his CO at the time that he wasn't cooperating; he'd since seen others, and only one other had gone and repeated what he was speaking about to his CO, but he found it very hard to speak to any doctor affiliated with MACO after that. Phlox wasn't giving him those vibes though – he really did trust him at this point.

After asking him a few more questions Phlox ended up increasing his dose of antidepressants and told him they would review it at the end of the month. Great, he needed more; because his brain was that fucking broken. But then he remembered the damn horse tranquilisers that the Captain had told him he'd been put on when he'd fallen ill… maybe it wasn't so bad. If someone like Captain Archer had needed them and said that they'd worked miracles when he actually was sorted properly, Hayes guessed he could handle needing to take them. He was lucky so far – there'd been some pretty bad nausea at first, and he'd had a nearly constant headache but that had settled after two weeks, and he began to feel a little bit better. A little bit; it was still a struggle most days.

He really wanted this to work.

He needed it to.

* * *

_Hey, I know I haven't been the most forthcom_

_Hey, sorry about the radio silenc_

_Hey, can I come by to talk?_

_Hey, just wanted to let you know I've not been feeling great and that's why I've been incognito the last few d_

Hayes deleted, yet again, the message he had composed to Malcolm. Or was trying to compose; nothing seemed good enough. What was he meant to say? _Sorry I've been ignoring you for the last two days after we had sex even though it was your first time with a man and I know you were overwhelmed afterwards? Sorry I suck so bad?_ Would that be manipulating him? Of course that would be manipulating him, Malcolm would feel obligated to try and perk him up no matter how mad he was, because Malcolm was actually a softie. Hayes had figured that out pretty quick from how he treated Hoshi, Cutler, crewmembers that weren't too familiar with the armoury, and even those on Hayes's team who were obviously freaked out about space travel. It was the exact opposite reaction that Hayes had expected from him, thinking he'd be disdainful and snappish; but no, he'd made them tea, and told them that it took some getting used to, hell, he'd been sick to his stomach for a week when he went on his first training tour. He'd reassured them that they'd adjust. And this was after the Twinkie Incident.

So, yeah, Hayes was pretty sure that a sob story would have Malcolm running to him, and that was the last thing he wanted. Well, actually, yeah, he did kind of like the idea of Malcolm coming running to him, but he knew that wasn't fair, and he wasn't going to do that to him. Instead, he was going to rack his brain and try to think of something to say, some way to phrase it that didn't look like he was trying to get sympathy, because he was a grown ass man who'd fucked up and he wasn't going to cry about the consequences.

He sighed, and dropped the PADD onto his bed beside him before flopping onto his side and rolling over onto his back, dragging his hands through his hair. He stared at the ceiling, knees bent, tapping his fingers against his stomach. He didn't care that he had his boots on.

What was he meant to say? Ugh. He needed Piper. He needed Harper. He needed a closer friend on this ship other than he man he was trying to apologise to. And he didn't even know if he could classify them as friends! Though, Hayes did think he knew Malcolm pretty well by this point: he knew that Malcolm was probably blaming himself and thinking that he'd done something wrong; he knew that Malcolm tended to assume people didn't like him; he knew that he'd been afraid that the MACOs would think he was cold and aloof and he didn't care if they lived or died; he knew groups of people Malcolm didn't know freaked the hell out of him; he knew public speaking made him feel ill, but he did it anyway and knocked it out of the park; Hayes knew that the crew was the people he was closest to in the galaxy; and he knew that Malcolm's biggest fear was one of them getting hurt.

Yeah, Hayes knew him. And he knew that he deserved better than what he was currently getting. But Hayes needed help.

_Screw it_. Hayes sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and scooped up his PADD. He took a deep breath, before standing and striding straight out of the door, as though he was afraid that he would lose his nerve if he lost his momentum. He turned left, right into the turbolift and headed to B deck. But he wasn't going to Malcolm's; no, he was going to the quarters right next door.

"Hey, major." Hoshi opened the door after a moment, dressed in an oversized red shirt and grey pajama pants. She looked surprised to see Hayes there. "What can I do for you?"

Hayes awkwardly held up his PADD. "Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping I could ask your advice on a personal problem…"

That threw Hoshi; her eyebrows nearly shot past her hairline. "Sure," she said quickly, before Hayes could tell her to never mind, and stood back to let him in. "Of course, come on in."

Hayes did so, feeling his heart pounding and an odd sensation of heat flared across is face; he hoped he wasn't going red, but he probably was. That knowledge did not help.

"Would you like a coke?"

Hoshi went to her closet, and pulled out two cans of coke, holding out one to Hayes. He took it gratefully, realising his mouth had gone bone dry. He sat down on the bench by the door as Hoshi pulled her desk chair out and around to face him. This was a bad idea; he barely knew Hoshi, and here he was coming to her for relationship advice. He felt ridiculous, but he was pretty sure his options were either her, Tucker, or try to work it out on his own, and he was no good at that. He didn't think he'd ever sent an important message to a past boyfriend without running it by one of his sisters first – normally Piper, but then Quinn got annoyed if he didn't tell her he so much as had a dentist appointment, Avery didn't care, and honestly Harper gave the best advice out of all of them…

Hayes was pretty sure he barely qualified as an adult.

"Do you, um, do you remember the other night?" Hayes began hesitantly, rolling the can between his hands.

"You mean when you stayed over at Malcolm's?" She laughed at Hayes's surprised expression. "Yeah, I knew that was you; Malcolm doesn't light up when everyone comes into a room, and you have a tendency to hover near him like an awkward turtle."

The other night Hayes had quickly realised that he and Malcolm had run into a pretty significant problem: they had no condoms. Or lube. Hayes had been tested just before leaving Earth, and Malcolm was tested for every possible infection every time he returned to the ship, so he might have just said screw the condoms – but Malcolm was too wound up about it hurting for Hayes to risk not using lube.

_Malcolm picked up his PADD from his desk and started typing on it, before throwing it back down and coming back to the bed. They continued making out for a few more minutes, Malcolm successfully getting Hayes's sweatpants off, until Malcolm's doorbell rang. Malcolm slowly extricated himself from Hayes's arms and went to get it. _

"_What are you doing?" Was he really going to get the door in nothing but his underwear, with a raging hard on? But when he opened the door there was nobody there. He bent down to retrieve something and quickly closed it. He turned around, triumphantly holding up a box of latex free condoms and a bottle of coconut flavoured lube._

_Hayes stare at him in disbelief. "Did you message the Lube Fairy, or something?"_

"_I did, and I shan't tell you their name."_

"_It's Hoshi, isn't it?"_

Her quarters where right next to Reed's. Besides, the last time they'd gotten shore leave, Phlox had put a reminder in the formal group chat that during intercourse with any aliens of any species of any gender a condom should be used, and that he had both latex and latex free in sick bay. Captain Archer had immediately typed into the chat _Not a suggestion – A DIRECT ORDER_. Tucker had then sent _Yeah Hoshi_, and frantically deleted it when he realised that he accidentally put it in the group and hadn't sent it to her privately. Hoshi just shot back that Tucker wasn't exactly one to talk and she didn't need any from Phlox, winky face, and Captain Archer had had to remind them that this was the formal group chat, and could they please do this in private. T'Pol just posted a link to Starfleet's policy on sexual harassment and propriety in the workplace. It had been a weird twenty minutes. It got weirder when the Fleeters started telling them about some of the crew's more _intimate_ experiences with other species over the years and he found out that Tucker had actually been pregnant for about three weeks, three years ago. And no, the Fleeters weren't punking them. Tucker showed him pictures – he'd stayed in contact with the mother.

"_Of course it was Hoshi, who else was it going to be?" _

Hayes took a sip of coke. "I remember Malcolm telling me that the bulkheads have ears and that all of them are yours."

Hoshi laughed again. "What the hell else were you going to do with condoms and lube?"

"Why do you have coconut flavour?"

"Why not?"

Hayes shook his head and chuckled. "Do you really think I'm an awkward turtle?"

"Yeah, but I also know that Malcolm loves the nineteen ninety-five Pride and Prejudice mini-series, and you give me major Mr. Darcy vibes. He's also an awkward turtle," she continued when Hayes looked confused. "He's socially awkward to the extent that he convinced his crush he hates her; and you can see him just hovering near Elizabeth after he starts getting into her. In the show. You two should watch it sometime," she added suggestively.

"If he still wants to talk to me," Hayes confessed.

Hoshi nodded understandingly, the grin slipping from her face. "He is wondering if he did something wrong."

"He didn't," Hayes insisted. "_I'm_ the problem, but I don't know how to say that without looking like I'm fishing for sympathy."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want him to feel sorry for me."

"No," Hoshi waved a hand. "I mean, what do you mean you're the problem? I know you've been put on a lighter schedule, I know something's up," she continued. "I'm always here if you want to talk, and you don't even need to come all this way; Travis is right next door to you. You've got a lot of support on this ship, I promise you."

Hayes took a deep inhale. What had Tucker said? _The Captain, and the entire Senior Staff, take our duty of care towards the crew very, very seriously – and that includes everyone dressed like a Shark_. But Hayes had heard that before, believed it – and been burned by it.

"I think I'm beginning to figure that out," Hayes said. He looked around her quarters for inspiration; the layout was exactly like Hayes's, only she had pictures, books, a few knickknacks on her desk – and a Malcolm original pinned to her wall. It was just a landscape of what Hayes had to guess were East Asian looking flowers done in oil pastel. Hayes always knew when Malcolm was working in oil pastel – his fingers were always stained afterwards. Malcolm trusted Hoshi; enough to call on her for help in an incredibly intimate situation. And Hayes knew that Malcolm's trust was as rare as a laughing Vulcan.

_Here goes nothing_…

"I haven't felt up to talking to anyone in the last couple of days," Hayes explained, leaning on his knees and staring at the can he was clutching in his hands. "And that includes Malcolm." He looked up at Hoshi to see her regarding him sympathetically. He shrugged.

The truth was, he was worried about hurting Malcolm; every time Hayes had tried to reach out to him in the last couple of days, he'd stopped himself. Malcolm was busy, he had work, he was relaxing, he didn't need Hayes hounding him for attention; he needed to time to process what had happened the other night, not Hayes overwhelming him again and being the idiot that thought that he could kiss it all better. Hayes knew how much fucking work he was, his grandparents and Quinn weren't exactly shy in letting him know, and he couldn't put that on Malcolm. He didn't _want_ to put that on Malcolm. And then his mood just plummeted and he found it difficult to even read Malcolm's messages without getting upset and wanting to throw his PADD against a wall.

But he didn't say any of that to Hoshi. "I don't know how to apologise."

She shrugged. "You just need to tell him the truth. He'll understand."

"I don't want to manipulate him, or make him feel like he has to forgive me because I'm such a sad-sack."

Hoshi looked at him, like he was simple. "The fact that you're worried about manipulating him, means that you're probably not manipulating him. Just tell him you've had a crappy few days, and you want to make it up to him."

Right; make it up to him. How the hell did he go about doing that? He could probably bribe him with food, Malcolm was a sucker for pineapple fritters and ice-cream… non-dairy, obviously, Hayes didn't want to send him into anaphylaxis. The time someone had mislabeled the regular milk as almond had been a very interesting breakfast – luckily the mess first aid kit had an epi pen. They never found out who swapped the labels, but they were sure that it was someone who thought that Malcolm only had a lactose intolerance and not an actual allergy. Hayes hoped.

Hayes held up his PADD. "So, I normally get one of my sisters to help me…" he trailed off hopefully.

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "You and Malcolm are the biggest disasters on this ship, I swear to whatever deity is listening. You're perfect for each other." But her tone wasn't unkind. She moved over to her bed and patted the space beside her. "Come on, lets make promises you don't intend to keep to your boyfriend."

Hayes grinned, and sat beside her. She ended up not really having much input in the message Hayes eventually wrote; but she was encouraging, even if she gently teased him at the same time. It was actually like talking to Piper a little bit, he just needed someone to tell him that he could do it, he was fully capable of doing it himself; Quinn would have just written it for him. His older sister being too heavy handed had caused more than one argument between her and Hayes's younger twin siblings, Piper and Parker. They often accused Quinn, their half-brothers Elliot and Miles, and their grandparents of being too controlling with him. Their maternal grandparents felt the same, but had often had to hold their tongues when Hayes had been growing up – Grandma Dolores and Grandpa Elliot had threatened more than once to not let them see them. But Hayes couldn't really blame his grandparents; he'd been a terror as a teenager, and they'd spent a lot of his twenties trying to get him to stop drinking. And then Sadie had happened…

But Hoshi was a lot more like Piper, and even Harper, in this regard. And she was easy to talk to, trying to make him laugh, and just buoying him up in general.

By the time he sent the message, he actually felt like he had a chance.

And not just with Malcolm.


	10. Still Not a Date

_Hey, I wanted to apologise for going radio silent the last couple of days. My headspace hasn't been the best and I thought I needed to retreat a little bit. I'm sorry I upset you, that's the last thing I wanted to do but I just needed some space. I'm ready to talk whenever you are, if you still want to figure out what this thing we've got going on is_

Hayes waited for Malcolm's reply with Hoshi; turns out they both loved My Little Pony – Hoshi had been impressed that Hayes recognised the Pinkie Pie slippers that Archer had gotten her for her birthday and they ended up watching an episode of the series; it was nice, just hanging out with a friend, and Hayes couldn't remember the last time he'd been so relaxed with someone who wasn't Malcolm. He really needed to plan a game night – he'd used to plan them about every other week, inviting different people from his team each time, and a couple of Fleeters as well. Though Ed, Mac, and Ayo were constantly fixtures. And then there were the weekly poker nights that Mac held, and that he hadn't been to in three weeks – and about a month before that. He seriously needed to stop avoiding his friends.

The credits of the second episode of My Little Pony rolled before Malcolm replied.

_I'm free now if you want to talk_.

He showed it to Hoshi, his heart starting to pound against his chest. Well, at least he was willing to speak to him.

"Go get your man," Hoshi said, grinning like a Cheshire cat, playfully nudging him with her elbow.

"Thanks Hoshi," Hayes replied, standing up to put his boots back on. "I mean it, really."

"Any time," she told him. "And just be honest with Malcolm; you've got this. But remember – healthy boundaries are a _good_ thing."

She gave him two thumbs up as he left her quarters and he just smiled in return, though he did think the boundary thing she threw in was weird. He quickly put it out of his mind however as he reached out to ring Malcolm's bell next door, his hand shaking slightly, when he thought better of turning up empty handed; he instead headed for the galley thinking he could heat up some pineapple fritters and see if there was any banana and peanut butter ice-cream in the freezer. He returned to Malcolm's quarters a few minutes later with his loot and, tucking the ice-cream under his arm, rang the bell.

He wiped his sweaty palm on his leg, feeling like there was troop of butterflies having a party in his stomach. He started when the door slid open to reveal an impassive looking Malcolm, who just wordlessly stood back to let him in. Hayes grimaced as he crossed the threshold, Malcolm having turned his back on him.

"I brought your favourite," Hayes said lamely, setting them down on the desk.

"Cheers," Malcolm replied unimpressed, from his perch next to them, having hopped up at the same time Hayes set down his wares. He kicked out his chair and rested his feet on it, crossing his arms in his lap. "What did you mean your headspace hasn't been great?"

Okay, straight to the chase. Hayes shrugged as he sat down on the bed directly opposite him and he got himself comfortable before replying. "I guess I was just in a lousy mood, and I didn't really feel like talking all that much."

"Alright, what put you in a lousy mood?" Malcolm pressed. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed to be trying to make himself as small as possible. Hayes suddenly remembered what Hoshi said about Malcolm thinking he'd done something. _Shit_.

"It wasn't anything you said or did," Hayes tried to reassure him.

"_It's not you, it's me_, seriously?" Malcolm shot back. His impassive mask was beginning to crack, and Hayes could see some genuine hurt there. He wanted to kick himself.

"It's not just a line –"

"Then what happened?" Malcolm interrupted. "You seemed perfectly fine the day before, and then nothing. Not a word. You didn't even look at me when we passed each other in the armoury or the gym. What am I meant to think?"

_Just be honest_. Okay Hoshi, let's see how much your advice is worth. Hayes nervously ran a hand through his hair and stared at Malcolm's boots lined up neatly on the floor for a moment. Malcolm's quarters had almost the same layout as Hayes's and Hoshi's, just the bathroom and the door were on the opposite side of the room. And it actually looked like someone lived there. Hayes needed a poster.

"I started thinking," Hayes said slowly, still staring at the ground. He held his hands together to stop them from shaking. "That I wasn't really good for you; that I wasn't going to be able to be what you need, and that I was a selfish jackass for rushing you. And that I was going to be too much for you."

Malcolm was silent for a couple of beats, and Hayes was too afraid to look at him. "Don't I get a say in that?" When he did finally speak, Malcolm's voice was low, and his tone very carefully measured.

"I am a lot of fucking work," Hayes said, finally looking up to see Malcolm regarding him thoughtfully, but not as though he was judging him. Hayes leant his elbows on his legs and rested his chin on his clasped hands. He felt like a tool to be admitting this, but Malcolm had to know. _Just be honest_. "Like, a lot."

"So am I," Malcolm replied with a shrug. "It's not like dating with PTSD is easy, you know. Especially when said trauma successfully repressed one's sexuality for years and one's trying to lose all one's hang-ups."

"That's another thing, I was terrified I broke you the other night."

"I was fine!"

Hayes just gave him a look. "You were overwhelmed."

"I was not."

"You were shaking and couldn't speak afterwards!"

"I was tired, and so were you."

"At least I was coherent."

Malcolm scoffed. "I was perfectly coherent."

"Yeah, after twenty minutes, a glass of water, and a snack." And snuggling for the entire time with Hayes tenderly stroking his hair. Fine, his ass.

"I was still fine," Malcolm retorted. "I have no regrets about the other night," he continued quickly when Hayes opened his mouth to speak. "None. Whatsoever." He turned uncertain then, looking Hayes up and down. "Unless you do?"

"None," Hayes said emphatically. "Whatsoever."

"Even after thinking you broke me?"

"Okay," Hayes admitted, shrugging one shoulder. "I was getting kind of angry at myself for not putting you first."

"Oh, I was thoroughly looked after, you don't need to worry about that," Malcolm looked at him like he was crazy.

"No, I mean…" Hayes huffed a breath sharply through his nose. "I mean, that, I – I don't know what I mean. I was worried I pressured you into it," he finished finally.

"You didn't," Malcolm insisted. "I can make up my own mind, you know. And you can't just disappear on me when you get upset. I was starting to get really worried, and then when you didn't show up this morning…" he trailed off. "I was really worried this morning, is all." He was starting to look more visibly nervous now; he started playing with his hands, clearly trying to work up the nerve to say whatever he wanted to say next. "And I think if we're going to pursue this then we need some ground rules, the first one being that you can't just avoid me when you're in a mood."

Hayes hadn't expected that. "Ground rules, seriously?" What were they, dumbass teenagers? Okay, fine, Hayes knew full well he wasn't the most emotionally mature, but still. He had kept relationships together before. Not for very long, because they guys he dated couldn't handle the drinking – though Jason had lasted longer than most, but even he had left in the end. Even so, he had a damn sight more experience than Malcolm did. He knew for a fact that Malcolm's longest relationship was three months, and he didn't need his little Baby Gay to tell him how act in a relationship.

"Yes, seriously," Malcolm said, not backing down. "I was talking to Phlox –"

"Why the hell were you talking to Phlox about us?" Jesus Christ, they'd slept together once, and he was running to a therapist? Did he think that he was too much to handle? Already? Hayes himself did think that, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt that Malcolm clearly thought so too. "What, did you need advice about dating an alcoholic?"

"No, I needed advice about dating with PTSD. And if I want to make ground rules and, and –" he searched for the words, clearly trying to remember what Phlox had said. "_Healthy boundaries_ to protect myself, then I think that's perfectly acceptable."

_Healthy boundaries_. He'd clearly been talking to Hoshi. And now Hayes had been talking to Hoshi; should he have gone to someone else? Who? Mac? Ed? Maybe Hoshi could have gotten him in contact with his sisters: _Hey Piper, just calling you for the first time in months from deep space to get some dating advice. You know how I'm so much work that I've scared off every single guy I've ever dated and am just a mess of a human in general? Well, now I'm dating a guy who has PTSD and there's _no way_ that he can handle me without keeping at arms' length with a bunch of very specific rules. How's everything with you?_

"I don't mean that you can't have any input," Malcolm continued, seeing that he had an opening while Hayes was trying to sort out several different trains of thought. "But I only admitted to myself that I'm gay less than to two years ago, and I have a lot of old wounds that I need to look after. And I have anxiety, so if I need clear rules to help me navigate this, then so be it."

"Fine," Hayes huffed. As if that was the real fucking reason, as if it wasn't so he could find a way to put up with dealing with Hayes. And he knew that he was a lot of work, he knew that some boundaries were probably a good idea, and he knew that he needed to quash that bubbling feeling in his chest before it spilled over. But here was the man he cared about highlighting exactly why Hayes was a fuck up, and he couldn't take it. He felt like he was about to explode. "Fine. No disappearing acts. Anything else?"

"Are you okay with that?"

"Don't have a choice, do I?"

Malcolm swallowed. "Well, you do actually," he said, very quietly. He was clasping his hands so tightly in his lap that his knuckles had gone white, and he looked like he was wound tighter than a drum.

"That's news to me."

At his tone Malcolm schooled his features into an impassive mask that not even Hayes could read. His voice was steady when he next spoke. "I just told you why I need this. And I think it could be good for you too –"

"I don't need any fucking rules!" Hayes shot up suddenly, causing Malcolm to flinch. "We are goddamn adults, why the fuck do we need write a list of rules like we're five-year-old's who need a list of what we are and are not allowed to do? Do I get a gold star when I tell you I'm have a bad day?"

"If this is going to be your attitude then I think you should leave." Malcolm kicked his chair out to the side as he stood up; it rolled until it bumped into the wall. "I won't put up being spoken to like this."

"And, what, I should let myself be bossed around like a jackass who can't – who can't –"

"Who can't what?" Malcolm snapped, folding his arms across his chest. "Can't have a conversation like a reasonable adult?"

"Clearly you think so, or you wouldn't have gone to Phlox for advice on how to talk to me!"

"I already told you why! And I hate to break it to you, but considering how volatile you are, maybe I _should_ have asked for some advice!"

"Volatile?" Hayes's mouth dropped open. Him? Volatile? Okay, fine, he was, but that didn't mean that Malcolm had the right to say it.

"And what would you call this?"

"Understandably pissed off!"

"Over what? What did I ask of you that's so awful?"

"Why are you even bothering to be with me if it's going to be such a chore for you?"

"I just told you that I'm nervous and that's why I need to do this!" Malcolm's voice broke towards the end. "This is completely new to me, and I'm still trying to adjust –"

"If you find being with me so disgusting why are you even bothering?" Hayes snapped.

"Get out." Malcolm pointed at the door, an obvious wobble in his voice now. "Just get out; this is obviously not going to work."

"Because you don't want it to."

Malcolm's eyes were getting very bright, and he was looking Hayes up and down nervously. "I'd like you to leave."

Hayes stared him down and Malcolm, for his part, didn't break eye contact, he just kept pointing at the door. That judgmental, little ass, who thought that Hayes needed some list to know how to act right in a relationship. And he just kept pointing at the door, as if Hayes didn't know where it fucking was. And who was just standing there, not saying anything, not even blinking, his eyes filling with tears –

Oh.

Oh.

Oh God.

What had he just done?

The anger that had been developing popped like a balloon, and Hayes realised that Malcolm had a hard set to his jaw, and his eyes had turned steely. _Healthy boundaries_. Should he go get Phlox? Should he know more about PTSD? He probably should. Oh, fuck, what the hell had he just done? Hayes wanted to punch himself in the teeth.

He took a couple of steps back, covering his mouth with his hands. "I didn't mean to get that mad," he said slowly, feeling sick with himself. "I'm so sorry –"

"Be sorry somewhere else." Malcolm had finally dropped his hand, and recrossed his arms. Hayes could tell that it was to stop himself from shaking.

"I overreacted –"

"Clearly." Malcolm was actually starting to shake now.

"Why don't I get Hoshi?" Hayes said quickly, cutting across what Malcolm wanted to say next. "I'll leave, but I don't, I don't want to leave you alone."

"Perhaps I want to be alone." The picture of nonchalance was ruined by a tear leaking out of his eye. He quickly wiped it away.

Hayes bit his lip. _Shit_. "I am such an ass, I am so, so sorry. I shouldn't have yelled –"

"Oh, now you realise."

He was visibly shaking now, looked pale, and was breathing like he'd run a race; he flinched when Hayes reached out to grab the desk chair and wheeled it back in front of him. "Okay, you sit down –"

"Don't tell me what to do!" Malcolm snapped. He was about to lose it, Hayes could tell, and he didn't know if he should leave him alone, run and get Hoshi, or try and fix it himself. But what the hell did he know? How the hell was he meant to fix this? But the thought of getting someone else to clean up his mess was almost as unbearable as the thought that he'd ended up triggering Malcolm.

"I think you're having a panic attack –"

"Thank you, Major Obvious," Malcolm barked, but he sat down anyway. Or maybe his legs just gave out. He jumped when Hayes tried to put a hand on his shoulder. Hayes crouched down next to him, one hand on the desk next to him and bit his lower lip. Malcolm ended up putting his head in his arms on the desk in front of him, trying to take deep steadying breaths.

"I had a sister who had panic disorder, do have anything to ground yourself? Can I get you anything?" Hayes asked softly, resisting the urge to rub his back, instead grabbing the back of the chair. Malcolm stayed silent. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_… how could he lose it like that? Seriously, what was so wrong with what Malcolm was asking of him? He needed him to be understanding, and Hayes had made it all about him, and lost his temper. He was such an _ass_. He saw a bottle of water off to the side, and grabbed it and tried to get Malcolm to drink some.

He did after a moment, taking a small sip. "Take a few big gulps," Hayes instructed. "It worked with my sister," he continued when it looked like Malcolm was going to protest. He was relieved when Malcolm tried it, finishing half the bottle, gasping. But he didn't take his suspicious eyes off of Hayes the entire time. "Finish the rest of it," Hayes told him gently. "Trust me."

Thankfully, Malcolm did, and he polished off the rest of it. "Feel a little bit better?" Hayes asked, taking the bottle from him. "You can punch me in the face if you want." He gave a weak smile at his own joke, which quickly faded when Malcolm didn't return it. He was still regarding him as though he was expecting him to start yelling again. But he hadn't asked him to leave again.

"I'm fine," Malcolm said shakily. "Really, I'm fine now."

"I was overreacting," Hayes repeated, very quietly, looking down. "I know I was, and if you need to set those rules and be clear on what you want from me, then I want that – I want you to do that. If you still want to give this a chance," Hayes added uncertainly, glancing back up.

Malcolm was still trembling, but it was much less than before. "I would appreciate it if you could control your temper a little better," he mumbled, gripping his arms tightly. He was avoiding eye contact with Hayes.

"Absolutely," Hayes said quickly. "That's not even in question."

Hayes didn't catch what Malcolm said next, and asked him to repeat it. "You reminded me of my uncle," he said louder. "The one I went to live with when I was thirteen."

"The one who kicked you out?" Hayes still had no idea why Malcolm had been sent to live his uncle; he avoided the question when asked. Malcolm nodded, but he didn't say anything else about it, and Hayes decided not to push it.

"I am really okay with setting boundaries." He ran a hand over his jaw and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Honestly, that's fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? I want to be with you, and if that's what you need, then I can make it work. Honestly."

Malcolm wasn't appeased. "Then why did you get so angry?"

Because he had kind of been thinking that he was the problem, and that this was so Malcolm could deal with _him_, not so that he could deal with dating in general. But he didn't feel like admitting that. So much for honesty.

"I don't know," he just said, lamely. "I guess I didn't see the point in getting so strict with what we have, but if that's what you need then I want to do it; I think we should."

"Really?"

"Really."

Malcolm regarded him thoughtfully for a minute, but seemed to believe he was genuine.

"Alright, then." He nodded, seemingly placated.

Hayes was beyond relieved. He got up out of his crouch and grabbed a throw off the end of Malcolm's bed; he let Hayes throw it over his shoulders, and grabbed it in both hands. This time, when Hayes reached out to rub his arms, he let him touch him. "If I get like that again, you just throw something at my head, alright? Or give me a kick; smack me in the face, I won't mind."

Malcolm didn't reply.

"So, ground rule number one: no disappearing acts. I will drop you a message if I need space. I won't leave you assuming the worst and thinking I'm annoyed with you."

"Fair enough."

Hayes schooled his features into a neutral expression. He was embarrassed and frustrated with himself for losing his temper like that, and wouldn't have blamed Malcolm if he still wanted to kick him out right then and there. "Are you mad at me?"

"Bit embarrassed," Malcolm muttered, staring at his knees.

"I should be the one who's embarrassed, you didn't give the guy you have the hots for a panic attack."

"Shouldn't have had a panic attack in the first place."

"I shouldn't have lost my goddamn mind over a reasonable suggestion."

Malcolm looked him in the eye at that point. He seemed to believe him. Thank God.

They were both silent for a moment, trying to think of something else to say. This had turned uncomfortable, pretty fucking fast. _Well done Hayes_.

"So… Captain Archer snapped me out of it this morning," Hayes told him. He stood up again, and walked back over the bed and sat down. He had to fight the urge to just wrap Malcolm in his arms but thought that he should take what he should get at the moment. "He came in and threw a pillow on my face. Yeah," he continued as Malcolm eyebrows shot towards his hairline. "And a pile of blankets, and then finally Porthos. It was weird."

Malcolm smiled, remembering something. "Last year, I ended up dissociating in front of him – first time in _years,_ so it was actually quite frightening – and he managed to get me to stand up and made me walk around the room; he kept changing direction suddenly, and spun me around, and just kept talking nonsense until I started to laugh. There's a note on my personnel file, just to inform my CO, and it turns out he did some reading on what to do if I had an attack. He's good like that."

Hayes ran his hand through his hair again; it was probably completely on end at this point. "Any other CO, and I would be on the first transport back to Earth by this point."

"I find that hard to believe," Malcolm said, his brow furrowed. "I've had COs check in on me, and I've had a panic attack or two, but I've only ever gotten support. Even after the time I panicked during a drill on the bridge when I was assigned to the Hiryu. Yes, that was embarrassing." Malcolm grimaced at Hayes's sympathetic expression. "But, Captain Izumi made me some tea, told me to have a chat with the doctor, and had me shadow the Armoury Officer on the bridge for a few shifts. Even though I should have been qualified to take the tactical station at that point." He shrugged, almost squeezing his ears with his shoulders. "She said I needed to get it sorted, but she gave me the time to do it."

"If that happened to me, I would have been reassigned," Hayes told him, dourly. "I've seen it happen – you just get tossed in some office, or put on leave. And you've never shown up to work after going on a bender all weekend that only ended at seven am on Monday. Or just done a lousy job and get called a lazy waste of space by your CO."

"But did they know they had you had a problem?"

Hayes looked down again. "Yeah, because I told them. I was a year out of Westpoint, and had started drinking again after two years and just…" he shook his head and looked back up to Malcolm regarding him sympathetically. "I tried to get sober again myself, but I thought that I should tell my CO that I was struggling, because we got the same crap_: look after your mental health, if you need supports we have 'em, don't suffer in silence,_ blah, blah, blah_._ Nothing but lip service. I can honestly say that I've had more help in the last month than I have in the last twenty four years."

"I take it then, that MACO psychiatric facilities have little to be desired?" Malcolm asked, looking slightly pissed off. If Hayes didn't spend so much time with him, he doubted he would have been able to read his pretty impassive expression.

Hayes nodded, but didn't reply. It was common knowledge how effective modern psychiatric treatments were, though there was the opinion that was more to do with the combination of patients being more willing to engage with therapists and early detection programs. There was little stigma attached to it anymore. Hayes remembered Tucker saying just that morning how surprised he was that the MACOs hadn't been required to under a psych eval. Maybe he should recommend it to General Casey.

"But we're not talking about how crap MACO psych is," Hayes said, wanting to change the subject. "We're talking about us; and whatever it is we have going on."

"Right," Malcolm said. "Right." He glanced down, a little bit guiltily. "To that end… there is one other important thing…"

Hayes scrunched up his face in confusion. A flash of nervousness crossed Malcolm's face before he settled into another mask of complete composure. Hayes was getting the impression he'd practiced whatever it was he was about to say.

"The thing is, I do want to explore this – _relationship_ – further, and I do love spending time with you, however…" he visibly gulped, the only outward sign that he was uncomfortable. "I think that I want to wait a little while before we sleep together again. I have a lot to process," Malcolm continued. "It's purely to do with me, and giving myself some time to get comfortable with everything. It's nothing to do with you at all."

Hayes just looked at him for moment. Alright, not what he wanted to hear, but considering he'd had a slight heart attack when Malcolm said 'however' and thought he was about to get dumped before it was even a real relationship, he was going to take this as a win. "It's not you, it's me," he deadpanned. "So you were overwhelmed."

"Alright, I was a little bit. The thing is, I was labelled as a 'faggot' from an early age, not because they knew I was gay, but because it was the worst thing they could think to call me and torture me with," Malcolm continued, almost pleading with Hayes to try to understand. But Hayes didn't; he couldn't. He'd never gotten any flack about being gay, he didn't know anyone who had, and honestly wasn't something he could empathise with. What Hayes did know was that he just wanted to hold him. "And by 'they', I mean my elder sister. Did I show you my arm?" Malcolm asked, timidly. He moved over to sit next to Hayes, rolling up his right sleeve as he went. Hayes didn't miss the fact that he was eyeing him a little suspiciously as though he was afraid that he was going to snap again; or the fact that he made sure to leave some distance between them when he sat on the edge of the bed; or that he was coiled tighter than a spring, as if he could hop up and fly to the other side of the room at the slightest provocation.

"When I was twelve," he started, a slight tremble in his voice. "My sister's friends held me down, while she did this."

He held out his arm. There, carved into his arm was an old scar. Hayes had felt it the other night, and had glimpsed it once or twice in the gym, but had written it off as old self harm – and they were obviously old, so he didn't need to worry about it. He'd never felt the need to take a closer look. But there, on the inner side of Malcolm's forearm, starting at the wrist, was the word 'FAGGOT' carved into his skin.

Hayes took his arm gently in both hands, running a thumb over the 'F'. He could feel Malcolm trembling. "Madeline did that?" Was all Hayes could say. He could feel rage building up in his chest again. She better hope that she never met Hayes. All he wanted to do in that moment was head back to Earth, and find the pieces of crap that had did this to him.

"Meredith," Malcolm corrected. "She's older, Madeline's younger. Madeline is the one who skinned on me to our parents."

Great, so both of Malcolm's sisters were awful, terrible people that Hayes really wanted to punch in the face. And his parents for good measure. God, what kind of family had he grown up with? He knew that Malcolm had been bullied for being gay in school already, but tortured by his own family? He was shook out of his angry thoughts by Malcolm taking his hand back, and fumbling with the sleeve to cover his arm again.

"So, there you have it," he said, in a good attempt at breezy, plastering a fake smile on his face. "I just want to take things nice and slowly, and just give myself a minute to adjust. If, um, if that's alright. And I understand if it's not," he continued quickly. "I would understand that –"

"Malcolm," Hayes cut him off loudly, sensing he was going to start rambling awkwardly. "I am perfectly happy to give you whatever time you need. I've already agreed to your ground rules."

"Really?" Malcolm asked hesitantly, as if he couldn't believe his luck.

Hayes reached out and took one of Malcolm's hands in his. He was relieved that Malcolm let him. "Really. I am more than happy to go at your pace. And rule number two: when you're uncomfortable about something, speak up."

"I will!"

Hayes only raised his eyebrows in response.

"I will," Malcolm insisted. "I just did, didn't I?" He turned uncertain. "Are you really alright with not sleeping together for the next while?"

Hayes just shrugged before saying simply, "I've got hands."

Malcolm started laughing. "As long as you're going to be taken care of, I suppose that's alright." He turned awkward, staring at the ground, and glancing at Hayes out of the corner of his eye. He looked like he was about to start hyperventilating again.

"Come here." Hayes wrapped an arm around his shoulders, while Malcolm lay his head on his shoulder, while Hayes in turn laid his cheek on the top of his head. This was nice; he could stay here for a while, actually. And it looked like this was all he was going to get for the next while, so he'd better enjoy it.

"Matthew?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to watch the second episode of Band of Brothers?"

Hayes kissed the top of Malcolm's head. "I'd love to."


	11. Help

**Trigger warning: mentions suicide **

**Angst heavy chapter**

* * *

_Help _

_With?_

_Can you just come to my quarters please?_

Hayes sat on his bed, his chin resting on his tightly clasped hands. He kept glancing down to his PADD on the bed beside him, wondering when Malcolm was going to reply. He was starting to fidget and he was about to message him again when to door to his quarters just opened, Malcolm not having bothered to knock. Well, he was the security officer, there wasn't a door on the ship he couldn't unlock. Hell, Hayes doubted the brig could hold him. He immediately caught sight of what was sitting on the desk, and what Hayes couldn't take his eyes off of.

He paused for less than a fraction of a second, before he rounded the edge of the bed, sitting down beside Hayes. "Are you alright?"

_Meaning: did you drink that bottle of wine?_

"I didn't open it," Hayes said quickly. "I did not open it. Not a drop." He started wringing his hands, tapping his feet on the floor. "Phlox can check my blood if he wants."

"I believe you," Malcolm said, taking Hayes's hands with his own. Neither of them said anything for second. "So… you called me here to save you from the evil bottle of wine?"

"Is this a fucking joke to you?"

Hayes jumped up, startling Malcolm. He started to pace, avoiding looking at his desk.

"Of course not, but I don't really know what you want me to do here."

"Don't you want to know why I have a fucking bottle of wine?"

"I presume you got it from the pantry." There was a slight edge to Malcolm's voice. They had plenty of alcohol onboard, mainly wine and beer, and the Captain had a few personal bottles of hard liquor both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, but consumption was strictly controlled. They might have a drink with dinner every couple of months, or a special occasion, but that was it for the crew. Hell, with a few exceptions, they didn't even really go wild on shore leave. "If we don't go crazy every once in a while, we'll go crazy," was the Captain's motto; it was the main reason that the crew got away with their bullshit shenanigans. Hayes was convinced that Captain Archer thought that if he let the crew blow off a little bit of steam fairly regularly, then he could avoid massive blowouts that resulted when over a hundred people with cabin fever tasted fresh air for the first time in months. So far, no one had ended up in hospital; though five crew members had been arrested for accidentally trespassing once, but Hoshi had cleared that up pretty easily.

"Of course I got it from the fucking pantry!" Hayes started pacing.

Malcolm got quickly to his feet and folded his arms across his chest. "What exactly did you want help with?"

That drew Hayes up short. The honest answer was he wanted him to keep him from drinking that entire bottle of wine, because today of all days Hayes just did not want to have to think. About anything. Today, he really needed to just switch off and enter oblivion. But how did he verbalise that to Malcolm?

"I don't know!" he threw up his hands, turning away from Malcolm. He ran both of his hands through his hair and knew that it must be completely standing on end now, but he didn't care that he looked a mess. "I don't know."

"Why did you want me here?"

"I don't fucking know!" He wanted him to make sure that he didn't drink that entire bottle in one go; he wanted him to distract him from that misery and anger that was swirling around in his chest; he wanted to hold him or be held, he didn't care which he just wanted to lie in bed and not move for a couple of hours because he felt like he was completely coming apart, like he was going to explode. But how did he _say_ that?

Hayes turned around to see a very unimpressed Malcolm coolly staring back at him. "Very well, here's what going to happen: I'm going to get rid of the wine and in the meantime, you're going to get rid of the attitude."

He snatched the bottle off of the desk and stormed out. Hayes stood there, staring after him for a moment, before dejectedly flopping onto his bed, lying there with his knees bent and pressing his palms into his eyes. He groaned. God, what must Malcolm be thinking of him right now? Flying into a rage like that? All Malcolm had been trying to do was help, and he'd just flown off the handle; _nice job, Hayes, real nice._ But he needed to stop thinking about that, and start trying to compose what he was going to say to Malcolm when he came back.

Sorry should probably be the first thing he should say; _sorry for acting like a crazy person and yelling after you came to help me as soon as I asked_. _Sorry for being a mess of a human. Sorry for somehow trapping you in this relationship when you probably should head for the hills._

At least he' followed rule number three: _when someone is getting snappy, leave until they calm down._ He needed to be careful with Malcolm; they'd only been dating for a couple of weeks, and he'd already confessed that once the social worker had signed off on them, when he was fourteen, his uncle had gradually shortened his fuse until that house felt like a prison. The slightest thing could set him off, and Malcolm and his cousins had spent their teenage years walking on eggshells and coming up with strategies to spend as little time in the house as possible. Apparently getting yelled at by someone he was close to was a trigger; it was why he could never manage to get close to anyone he'd ever dated – aside from being gay. It was also one of the reasons why he hadn't wanted to get close to the Captain or Trip – he'd felt that wouldn't be able to stand his ground if there was an emotional connection; he'd felt that he wouldn't be able to do his job. It was only how safe Captain Archer actually made him feel that had let him take a reprimand without crumbling once they did become close. That, and therapy; he'd spoken to Phlox quite a bit about it.

So, yeah, Hayes knew full well that he couldn't yell at his boyfriend, and had thought he was getting pretty good at counting to ten when something set him off – he'd realised that had a pretty short fuse himself lately. But he'd be damned if he was going to give Malcolm another panic attack by yelling at him, or getting annoyed at something else and forgetting to tell him it wasn't him. Malcolm getting shot at by hostiles? No problem. Foothold situation on the ship? Sounds fun, let's annoy them into leaving. Hayes huffing and puffing under his breath because he was having a disagreement with Ed over the training schedule? Deer in the headlights.

They were a work in progress.

Hayes started trying to force as much air into his lungs as possible. When Malcolm came back, he was going to want some kind of an explanation, and Hayes did not know what to tell him. The truth was an option, yes, but Hayes didn't think he could get through it without crying, or throwing something. Or throwing up. They were all options, to be honest.

God, he was pathetic. He needed his boyfriend to save him from himself, and make sure he didn't give himself alcohol poisoning; he shouldn't have taken that fucking bottle from the pantry in the first place, but when he went in to grab some energy bars it had just been there, in the wine rack and he couldn't help himself. He was still on the meds for the cravings, but Phlox had put him on the lowest does now. So it wasn't that; no, he was just a loser who couldn't cope with it being August thirteenth. Last year had been rough too, them being in the Expanse at the time, but he'd held it together. But now he wanted a drink, he needed it – he didn't want to have to think anymore. And he certainly didn't want to have to talk about it, but he doubted that Malcolm was going to let him get away with not giving him something.

He heard his door open about ten minutes later, but didn't take his hands down from his eyes. Malcolm didn't say anything, but Hayes could hear him shuffling around and then two soft thumps on the ground. He felt him lie next to him, and realised that he must have taken off his shoes. Malcolm grabbed his wrist – kind of roughly – and pulled his hand away from his eyes, putting his other hand in Hayes and intertwining their fingers. They just lay like that for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped between them.

"Could you scoot over, I'm hanging half off of the bed here."

Hayes did so, not letting go of Malcolm's hand; he was taking comfort from his warmth of where their shoulders and arms were touching. After he realised that Malcolm wasn't going to say anything he mumbled "Sorry I flew into a rage."

Malcolm turned his head to look at him, eyebrows raised. "You were a mite touchy, but I wouldn't exactly call that a rage. What happened?"

Hayes was silent for so long it seemed as if he wasn't going to reply. "It's Sadie's birthday."

"Who's Sadie?"

"My younger sister. She died in thirty-nine. She was only twenty."

"I'm so sorry."

"She'd be thirty five today."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Malcolm asked hesitantly. "Come here," he said after a moment, putting arm under Hayes's shoulders and pulling him towards him. Hayes settled his head on Malcolm's chest and threw an arm across his stomach as Malcolm started to rub his back.

"She'd come to live with me the year before," Hayes said, screwing up his eyes in an effort to fight back tears. He did not want to talk about this, he wanted the exact opposite, but he found that he couldn't stop himself from speaking. He pressed himself closer to Malcolm and felt his arms tighten around him in return. It gave him some courage. He sniffed, before continuing. "She had a lot of the same problems as me, you know. She drank too much, and she did other shit too. She was my dad and step-mom's second youngest, and they'd just sent her to live with our grandparents permanently."

"They did that a lot," Malcolm commented dryly.

"Because my dad's an idiot," Hayes said bluntly. "I'm closer to him than I am to my mom, but he's the last person I would go to if I needed anything. I'd go to Michaela before I went to him. It's not because he doesn't care," he continued quickly. "He just has no idea what he's doing; about anything. And Sadie…" he shrugged. "She was a lot; I was a lot too."

"Alright, back to Sadie," Malcolm prompted gently, running a hand over his hair.

"She overdosed on something," Hayes admitted, his voice thick. "About a week after she moved into our grandparents; wound up in hospital. We thought it might have been on purpose, but she wasn't saying for sure. And I had been sober for three years at that point, so I thought that I was the perfect person to help her." He cut himself off, burying his face in Malcolm's chest, trying to stop the pressure form building behind his eyes. He exhaled forcefully, rolling away from Malcolm and onto his back. He pressed his palms into his eyes, and took a shuddering breath.

"She came to live with me in Atlanta," he said finally, a few tears escaping from his eyes as he brought his hands down. "It was so stupid, I didn't have any support down there, I was working so much, it was a new city to her." He let out a sob. "She didn't really make friends at first; I was so busy, you know. I felt I had to make up for four years of being a drunken mess and finally get promoted to captain, and I thought I could give her the attention she needed." He sobbed again.

"I don't know what the hell I was thinking. But I got her into therapy," he continued, tearfully. "I brought to all of my AA meetings, made sure she had what she needed – I thought it was going to be enough; I thought I was enough."

He shrugged, wiping his eyes, before he suddenly covered his eyes and started to cry in earnest. He forced himself under control a minute later, sniffling loudly. "Over a year later, she calls me at work, tells me she's made up her mind and that she can't do it anymore. She thanked me for everything and then just hung up. She hung up. I ran out of there." He turned his head to look at Malcolm. He'd turned onto his side and had been looking at him the entire time, one hand on Hayes's shoulder. "I got back to our apartment on base, and there were paramedics and MPs everywhere. She'd, she'd j-jumped off the roof. My little sister –"

He covered his face again, and didn't resist when Malcolm pulled him back towards him. He sobbed onto his shoulder as Malcolm just rubbed his back and let him cry. It took him a while to get himself under control.

"I took her out of San Diego," Hayes said, almost frantically, his voice slightly muffled by Malcolm's shoulder. "We had our grandparents there, Quinn, Elliot and Miles all still live there, my mom's parents are there, my dad, my step-mom, she had so much support and I took her away from that because I thought I knew better."

"She made the decision to go with you," Malcolm said soothingly. "And she called you just before she… yours was the last voice she wanted to hear; that's not nothing."

"I got my ass sober, so I thought I knew what the fuck I was doing," Hayes ignored him. "I thought that I was the perfect person to look after her." Just like he thought he could look after Malcolm. "I can't even look after myself."

He ended up telling Malcolm everything: how he'd stopped drinking in his final year at The Point, and had lasted another year before going out with friends and deciding that maybe he could have just one – which turned into a trip to the ER due to alcohol poisoning. He couldn't remember how he'd broken his arm. He'd kept drinking for another few years, managing to stay sober for a couple of months at a time, but he hadn't managed to finally quit until he was twenty-seven. After seeming like he had a bright career ahead of him when he first graduated, he was still a first lieutenant and had four years of being a mess of an officer to make up for.

"I don't even know how I got promoted to first lieutenant," Hayes said, shrugging. Though, to be honest, not getting the promotion to first lieutenant and then captain is actually pretty hard. As Hayes's grandparents often pointed out. Repeatedly. "I guess I must have turned up when it mattered at some point, but I mean, I used to have a beer with breakfast. I wasn't showing up drunk," he continued quickly, afraid Malcolm was going to judge him. "I had too high of a tolerance for that. But still…"

"How long were you sober for that time?" Malcolm asked quietly. They were still lying down together, Hayes with his head on Malcolm's chest, and Malcolm with his arms securely around him.

"Four years. I got a compassionate transfer back to San Diego and about a week after the funeral, I had lunch with Parker – he asked, I don't remember what, but our grandparents had told him that I was busy the previous day and that's why I couldn't make family dinner. He wanted to know how whatever it was went, but the truth was they didn't even invite me; they barely spoke to me for three months after she died. Went to a bar once I left Parker and drank myself into oblivion. Had no reason to stay sober at that point. I just didn't care anymore."

Malcolm made no reply, just started rubbing his back again. Hayes had ruined it. There was no way that Malcolm was going to want to stay with him now that he'd seen him like this – he knew how much fucking work he was, and here he was, dumping all of this on Malcolm. It wasn't fair; he can't do this to him; he can't go running to him whenever he needs to.

"Is her birthday normally hard?" Malcolm asked softly.

Hayes nodded. "This year… I just can't cope with anything lately; I'm sorry to do this to you."

"Do what?" Malcolm asked confused.

"I'm sure you didn't want to spend your evening with me crying on your shoulder."

"It's not ideal, but I'm more concerned with you being upset. Oi, look at me. Matthew." They both lay on their sides, facing each other, arms bent under their heads. Malcolm reached out to wipe away a stray tear with his thumb. "If you need me, I am here for you; I promise you that."

"I'm a mess."

"Nothing a tissue can't fix."

"That's not what I mean." Hayes sighed, burying his face in the pillow, before looking back at Malcolm. "I told you, I'm a lot."

"You also put up with my bad jokes," Malcolm said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're also brave; you're kind; you go out of your way for the people around you; I was really envious of how well you got on with your team, and how much they looked up to you, you know." He smiled kindly. "They know they can rely on you, you'd do anything for them. You'd do anything for anyone on this ship, it's why you earned everyone's respect so quickly."

"Including yours?" Hayes asked dryly.

"Hard to respect someone when you're too busy being jealous of them like a childish prick," Malcolm replied, shrugging. "I told you this already. But I always felt safe with you; even when I was pretending I didn't like you, I trusted you."

"Pretending?"

"Um…" Malcolm turned shy. "So, part of the reason that I was so opposed to you being here at first… was partly to do with how much I did actually like you; I was attracted to you right from the start, to be honest."

Hayes was shocked. "Really?"

Malcolm shrugged, leaning a little closer to Hayes. Their foreheads were almost touching. "Courageous, self-assured, loves guns." He grinned at that last one. "I could tell that you were honest – what you see is what you get; and I know you were a lot more patient with me than I probably deserved at the time. What's not to like?"

Hayes didn't know what to say. Malcolm really thought that about him? _Him?_ Well, if there's one thing he isn't lately, its reliable.

"Nonsense," Malcolm said, when he told him that. "You're not having an easy time of it right now, but it will get better. _It will_. When I started uni I started having these awful panic attacks, and flashbacks. I used to dissociate all the time when I became stressed – I actually had blackouts, it was horrible." Malcolm had an upset look on his face, like he was stuck in his bad memories right then and there. "It's the scariest sensation; sometimes I don't even know I'm doing it. It got so bad that I couldn't leave my flat."

He gave himself a little shake. "The point is, it got better; to the point where I was accepted into Starfleet. It will get better. I'm so sorry about Sadie – I can't even imagine how much that hurt."

"I should have left her with my grandparents," Hayes muttered. "They could have taken care of her."

"You don't know that. No, you don't," he added forcefully, when it looked like Hayes was going to protest. "You have absolutely no idea how she would have gotten on."

"Better than with me."

"You have no evidence of that."

"She's dead, I think that's all the evidence I need."

"I disagree. Come here." He reached out and pulled Hayes towards him again. Hayes settled his head on his chest again, enjoying the sensation of Malcolm running his fingers through his hair.

"I drank for another four years," Hayes murmured. "Before I got sober in forty three. Had a wake-up call."

"What was it?" Hayes could hear the curiosity in his voice.

"You're going to hate me."

"If you're only going to tell me to prove how terrible you are, I don't want to hear about it," Malcolm retorted.

"It's not something I can hide," Hayes responded. He pushed himself up, sitting with his back against the wall and sat cross legged. "If you meet my family, it'll come up."

Malcolm sat up as well, leaning against the metal headboard. Hayes thought that can't be comfortable; it was three horizontal bars, and they had to be digging into his back, but Malcolm didn't complain, or move the pillow to make himself more comfortable.

"Alright, then," Malcolm said, hesitantly. "What did you do?" he asked slowly, eyeing him up and down.

Hayes hated that he was looking at him like that, be he was about to look at him a lot worse. "I was looking after my niece, Valerie – she was two at the time. Her dad – my brother, Parker – had to take his wife Beth to a neonatal appointment; she was pregnant with their second. I got drunk and…" he looked down, and scrunched up his eyes. Malcolm was about to hate him. "I don't know what I was thinking…"

"What did you do?" Malcolm repeated.

"I think I must have been trying to take her to the park," Hayes whispered. He was too afraid to make eye contact with Malcolm. "I put her in the back of the car, and wrapped it around a tree at the end of the street. We both walked away without a scratch, but still." He looked up at Malcolm, fresh tears in his eyes. "She was two years old and it could have been so much worse. I wouldn't have blamed Parker if he'd actually killed me, and believe me, he wanted to."

Hayes closed his eyes tightly again, trying to stem the flood, his voice breaking. "Sadie, Valerie, I don't even know why my family still puts up with me. I know my grandmother had it covered up – it happened on base."

"You drove while drunk?" Malcolm said finally. Hayes hung his head, a few tears rolling down his cheeks. "It was eleven years ago," he said, as though he was trying to convince himself. "Matthew. _Matthew_." Hayes looked up, and Malcolm reached out to wipe his tears with the back his hand. "It was eleven years ago, and if I know you, and I think I do at this point, you've been punishing yourself ever since. You deserve to forgive yourself; _you do_."

Hayes shook his head. "I don't think so."

"You're not the Anti-Christ," Malcolm insisted.

"You sure?" Hayes asked flippantly. "Because God only knows what else I've done during blackouts over the years."

Malcolm was at a loss for words. Hayes watched him struggle for a moment, before bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He buried his face in his knees. He'd just screwed it up; he'd just royally fucked it all up, there was no way that Malcolm would want to be with him now – not after this, not after finding he'd done the unforgiveable –

"I don't care."

Hayes looked up sharply.

"I don't care," Malcolm repeated. "You're not scaring me off, and it's clearly not for lack of trying. You're a good man, your past actions not withstanding and I want to be with you. That means the bleak parts as well. I've known you for over a year, I've had my life in your hands, I know the kind of man you are and I'm not going anywhere."

He stood up.

"Where are you going?" Hayes asked in disbelief.

"I getting you a tissue – you look a proper _mess_."


	12. Let Me Be Frank

**Anybody who wants more information on Malcolm's sister Meredith, this story is related to my other story 'Pineapples'**

**#shamelessselfpromotion**

* * *

After Hayes had told him about Sadie and Valerie, Malcolm got him some tissues and helped him clean up his face. Not to mention the wet, snotty patch on Malcolm's shoulder. Hayes ended up getting his wish, and they just lay on his bed for an hour watching Mulan while Malcolm held him. They'd talked a little more about Sadie and Hayes told him that she'd been a dance teacher and how she'd wanted to open up her own school someday. She'd been silly – very quick to point out the most random things like puns on store signs, or how the United States is shaped like a fish. Hayes had come into the kitchen so many times to see her dancing like a marionette in a windstorm to whatever was on the radio. But she'd been moody as well, disappearing into herself for days at a time before suddenly acting as though nothing was wrong. Malcolm just listened and ran his fingers lightly over Hayes's back, drawing random pictures and sometimes asking Hayes to guess. And at Malcolm's insistence they ended up coming up with another rule:

Number four: Let yourself be taken care of.

He was still torn up over Sadie – he didn't think he would ever be able to get over what had happened to her – but it felt good to get it off his chest. He had mentioned her, briefly, to past therapists but he avoided talking about her whenever possible. When they wanted to press the issue he made sure to tell them exactly what they wanted to hear so they'd drop it – he had never felt comfortable enough to really speak about her to anyone. He didn't think he'd ever mentioned her to someone he was dating before. No, that wasn't right, he had to have dropped her name in conversation once or twice, but he'd certainly never cried for thirty minutes on anyone's shoulder. He'd always gone to great pains to make it seem like he was dealing with it. Actually, the last time he got worked up over it was at her funeral when he'd ended up loudly ugly crying in his childhood bedroom while his mother held him. The one and only time he could remember Nancy being there for him. She'd actually stayed in San Diego for a few months after the funeral, trying to be there for him, Quinn, Piper, and Parker.

Until she, Quinn and Hayes had a massive argument and she went back to Arkansas and he didn't hear from her again until his birthday. He couldn't even remember what they had been fighting over. It had probably been related to how much he was drinking.

"Sorry, love, my arm's gone dead," Malcolm said, taking his arm from behind Hayes's head. He shook it out, trying to get the feeling back into it. They'd been sitting together, backs against the headboard, Malcolm with an arm around Hayes while he lay against him.

"Sorry," Hayes said, as he scooted down and lay his head on Malcolm's stomach instead, wrapping an arm around his waist. He'd always been pretty cuddly with his partners, and it had become obvious very quickly that Malcolm was not. Most of the physical contact was initiated by Hayes: the random kisses; snuggling while watching a movie; touching his back or knee; sneak attack hugs when Malcolm was alone in his office and no one could see. And they were careful not to let anyone see. They left space between them on the rec room couches and Hayes had to restrain himself from touching his hand, or knee when they were in the mess. Hoshi and Tucker knew, obviously, and Malcolm confessed that he'd told Travis as well. It's not like it bothered Hayes, but they'd only been together two weeks and he wasn't comfortable with people knowing just yet; Malcolm even less so.

He could feel Malcolm's fingers as he drew aimless circles on his back and a pleasurable shiver went up his spine. He started drawing something more intricate, gently poking Hayes twice.

"Alright, what was that?" Malcolm asked him.

"Do it again?" Hayes requested. He smiled as Malcolm did so. "A smiley face?"

"You got it." He had just started to draw something else when the bell to Hayes's quarters rang. They glanced at each other before Hayes climbed over Malcolm to get it while Malcolm paused the movie.

"Good evening, major."

"Evening commander."

T'Pol was standing on the other side of the door, her hands clasped behind her back and a deadpan look on her face. "May I come in?"

"Of course, ma'am." Hayes stood back to let her pass, wondering what on Earth this could be about. Especially at this time.

"Good evening, commander," Malcolm said, getting up at her entrance and standing at ease. T'Pol eyed him up for a moment but didn't say anything. Malcolm glanced towards Hayes, his mouth set in a line. Well shit, what did that look mean?

T'Pol took a few deliberate steps towards Malcolm, not taking her eyes off of him. If Hayes didn't know any better he'd say she looked pissed off; Malcolm certainly looked worried. Everything about her, from her posture, to the way she was looking at them spelled bad news to Hayes. Her lips were pursed and her eyes steely, and it was having the combined effect of making Hayes feel nauseous. Neither Malcolm nor Hayes dared say anything which only made Hayes more nervous; Malcolm would normally have asked her what brought her there at this hour by now. Instead he was silent, trying to appear at ease. T'Pol came to stand between them, and looked from one to the other before settling on Hayes.

"Major, would you care to offer an explanation for this?"

She held out a PADD to him, cocking her head to the side. He took it from her, his heart jumping into his mouth. It was the video feed from the pantry; a frozen picture of Hayes was on the screen with the wine rack behind him. _Shit, shit, shit…_

"Press play." T'Pol cocked an eyebrow when he didn't immediately comply. "Play the feed, major."

He reluctantly did so and saw himself stand in front of the booze, hesitating. He could remember what had been going through his mind: he was trying to convince himself not to take it, to just leave it and run to Malcolm instead but in the end that part of him had lost and the part that of him that was angry and frustrated and still blaming himself for Sadie's death had won. The Hayes on the video finally snatched up a bottle and turned on his heel trying to hide it under his jacket. There was no doubt that it was him – his face was clearly visible.

"Major, are you aware of the policy surrounding alcohol consumption onboard?" T'Pol drawled. Her tone just dared him to be insubordinate and see what happened. Hayes was a dead man. He was dead, she was going to drag him in front of the Captain and he was going to have his ass handed to him. This was it, this was where his patience ended – Hayes just had to go and ruin it, all he'd had to do was control himself and behave, but no he had to go and break Captain Archer's trust. He was such a fucking piece of crap; he knew he didn't deserve the chance the Captain was giving him but he'd taken it anyway like the selfish ass he was.

"Commander, I think I can explain," Malcolm interjected quickly.

"I wasn't asking you, lieutenant." T'Pol unceremoniously shut him down. She kept her eyes trained on Hayes at all times and just held up a hand to silence Malcolm when he tried to speak again. He shut his mouth, chastised. It did nothing for Hayes confidence when he saw Malcolm gulp. "Major, I will not ask you again."

Hayes fought back the urge to puke. "Consumption of mind altering substances is strictly prohibited unless given express permission by the Captain or Executive Officer." He handed the PADD back to T'Pol and stood at attention. "That includes alcohol ma'am."

T'Pol took the PADD from him and turned to face Malcolm, her back to Hayes. "I saw you return the bottle, I already knew you were lying to me when we spoke in the pantry." Crap. Malcolm hadn't mentioned running into her when he brought it back. She glanced between the two of them again, an extremely unimpressed look on her face. "Would either of you care to tell me why you were playing pass the wine between the pair of you?"

"Ma'am, I returned the very same bottle the major took in the first place," Malcolm evenly told her. "Unopened."

"Lt. Reed is covering for me, ma'am," Hayes piped up, nice and direct. Like fuck was he letting Malcolm take the fall for him or try to get him out of it. "I took the bottle, this has nothing to do with the lieutenant."

T'Pol raised an eyebrow. "He lied to me; he's made himself involved."

Malcolm and Hayes exchanged a glance. "Commander, it is the consumption of alcohol that his prohibited," Malcolm calmly told her. The nervousness had gone from his face and now he looked like he wasn't even breaking a sweat. "I apologise that I mislead you, but in my opinion I felt that the matter was closed."

"I am still confused," T'Pol insisted, very mild annoyance seeping into her voice. "Major Hayes took a bottle of wine from the pantry; you returned it unopened. _Why?_"

"The major informed me he regretted his actions and wanted to return the bottle; a mistake was made, it was corrected with no harm done and no regulations broken."

"It was still taken in the first place."

"Removing supplies from the pantry is not prohibited and that is all that occurred."

That was a stretch – there were certain things in there that were very clearly off limits. Snack bars, trail mix, candy, fruit, they were all up for grabs at any given time. Meat was more tightly controlled, as were some rarer items that were hard to come by, like alien vegetables, and for sure the goddamn booze.

"But I did take contraband and I am prepared for the consequences." Hayes interrupted T'Pol from firing back at Malcolm. Maybe she'd just throw him in the brig for the night. Being confined the quarters for a few days was probably the best he could hope for right now, but maybe Malcolm could talk her down from whatever she was contemplating – no. No, he wasn't going to ask Malcolm to mitigate the punishment and he wasn't going to let him, he was just going to take whatever she wanted to mete out. "I should have exercised more control and restrained myself. It was a lapse in judgement and I am prepared for whatever reprimand you see fit."

T'Pol looked between the two of them again before turning to Malcolm. She'd apparently made up her mind on something. "Lieutenant, I'd like you to wait outside. That wasn't a request."

Malcolm hesitated for a fraction of a second before complying. He shot a sympathetic look towards Hayes as he passed him on his way out. T'Pol waited until the door shut behind him before speaking.

"Major, I was informed by the Captain of your… issue with alcohol." Oh, no, _she_ knew? T'Pol? Great, she already thought that Hayes was an idiot, and now it turns out she knew he was a weak ass alcoholic who would probably be the reason that Malcolm was going to secure the alcohol better onboard. This was almost as bad as if his team found out – wait, did this mean that the rest of the senior staff knew? Did Tucker know? Hoshi? Hayes forcibly swallowed the lump in his throat; the more people who knew, then the more likely it was that it was going to make its way around the whole ship. It was already pretty obvious that Hayes was on light duty, though he had more or less taken back all of his responsibilities from Malcolm and Ed by this point, but still. He knew that people were curious.

She glanced down to the side, and if Hayes didn't know better he'd say she looked uncomfortable. "At ease, major." He relaxed, but only just. "Do you remember when in the Expanse, when we came across the Seleya?"

Okay… where the hell was she going with this? "Yes, ma'am."

She looked him up and down, her features softening. "Then you remember I became affected by the trillium-D while we were onboard." She looked to side for a moment, deciding something. "I experienced quite strong emotions due to the exposure; emotions that took well over a week to subside. I found it quite difficult."

Hayes hadn't known that; to him she'd been nothing but cool, calm, and collected while in the Expanse. Mac actually told him that she liked working with T'Pol – her unflappable demeanour and composure tended to give her a calming effect on the crew, as well as her tendency to lay things out in the most straightforward manner possible.

"However," she continued, not looking at him. "I also found that I was able to… connect with the crew much better than before. I enjoyed it." She met his gaze head on just then. "I wasn't willing to give up that connection. I began taking small amounts of the substance, to the extent that I became addicted to it. I put myself in danger at one point just to get access."

Holy shit… Hayes couldn't believe his ear. He couldn't believe that she was telling _him_ this, of all people. Didn't she think he was an idiot?

"Now, as I'm sure you're aware, part of the ship's XO's responsibilities include crew welfare; and as I'm sure you can imagine this is not something I find easy, due to being a Vulcan serving on a human vessel. As such, advice and guidance from the rest of the senior staff is something I rely on, quite heavily."

"I think you do a fine job, ma'am." An odd segue way, but okay.

"I appreciate that major." And she seemed like she did. "When I was informed of your addiction, Lt. Reed advised me not to say anything; he felt that you wanted as few people to know as possible, and the Captain concurred."

"That would be accurate, ma'am." For fuck sake, who else knew? He and Malcolm were going to have to have a little chat later on. Provided he somehow managed to avoid the brig.

"I of course understand; you and Dr. Phlox are the only ones on the entire ship that are aware of my addiction and I would appreciate it if you could keep it that way."

"My lips are sealed, ma'am."

"I expected nothing but complete discretion from you. And I must admit, it was actually my first instinct to reach out to you to tell you about my_ own_ experience." She took a step towards him. "During the brief time I had unfettered access to my emotions… I realised what loneliness truly felt like." She was looking at him with a softer expression than Hayes had ever seen on her face – it was the kind of look she normally reserved for Tucker, Archer, and Hoshi. And occasionally Porthos. "I am telling you this because I do not want you to feel that you are alone; I may not understand everything that you are going through but I will try. You have my word."

Hayes was speechless. She was the last person he would have ever expected to hear that from – he'd mistakenly assumed that she wouldn't have a clue or even attempted to try to reach him. But what had the Captain said about her? _Don't let the aloof exterior fool you, she gives far more than a damn about her crew mates._ Huh. Guess she did. And Malcolm had the utmost respect for her, he knew that for sure.

"Th-thank you, ma'am," Hayes eventually managed to get out. "I really appreciate you telling me that."

T'Pol nodded. "Of course, major. To that end," she continued. "There are several meditation techniques that I found useful to deal with the cravings. I would be more than happy to show you them, if you'd like."

"That would be great," Hayes heard himself saying. Meditation? Him?

"Excellent, are you free tomorrow evening?"

Hayes heard himself tell her that he was, and he suddenly found himself with a date with the ship's First Officer at twenty-one hundred tomorrow night. What the hell had just happened?

After promising him that the Captain didn't need to hear about this, provided he confided his lapse to Phlox, she told him that she would let him get back to his evening with Lt. Reed, and swept passed him as regal as ever.

"And, major?" She'd turned at the door.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Meditation is not 'nap-time'. Consider yourself warned."

Hayes was about to feel insulted, until he noticed the glint in her eye, and the slight raise of her eyebrows.

Huh. Maybe she did have a sense of humour.


	13. Speak Up

At his next session he told Phlox about the wine, as promised. Phlox just reminded him that recovery wasn't linear and that some setbacks were okay, and even expected. It didn't mean that he wasn't getting better. He asked if he wanted to talk about Sadie, or if he wanted to continue on with CBT for that session and leave Sadie until the next time when they had their talk therapy. Hayes said he wanted to leave it, and truth be told, he was going to avoid that conversation for as long as possible. He had never seen her body, but he remembered the white sheet they'd lain over her on the ground… and the blood on the pavement around the body that the sheet hadn't quite covered…

He finally felt himself settling on the medication and he found to his surprise that everything was a lot easier to deal with. He was still seeing Phlox twice a week, but they were discussing bringing that back to once a week after maybe another month and Phlox was insistent on organizing the therapy in a way that Hayes was comfortable with; the simple act of him doing that was doing wonders for Hayes's mood.

Hayes ended up confessing to Captain Archer what had happened with the wine – he just felt so guilty that he'd betrayed his trust like that, that he couldn't not tell him. He'd told him that he was prepared for whatever punishment the Captain had in mind but he'd just said that he'd rather not reprimand him seeing as he ended up coming clean and actually called on someone for support and assistance. Captain Archer actually said he was more inclined to reward him for asking for help. He told him not to worry about, and keep up the good work. Hayes's legs had nearly gave out from under him from the shock.

He was beginning to think that getting caught by Malcolm was the best thing to have ever happened to him.

T'Pol was a huge help as well; she started giving him meditation lessons once a week and he hadn't found it helpful so far, but he remembered what the Captain said about her being a good listener and thought he'd give it a shot. Turns out, she was a _great_ listener and very patient. And she had this wonderful, sarcastic sense of humour that reminded him of Malcolm and he found himself wondering how in the name of God he'd ever thought she was aloof and didn't give a crap. She understood a lot of the addiction crap perfectly and she even confided to him that she's damaged the centre of her brain that represses her emotions thanks to the Trellium-D. He was shocked that she was actually having such a hard time of it, herself. He ended up resolving to just stop assuming that he was the only one going through any shit and to look after his crewmates a little bit better. He owed them that much. To his delight it also turned out that Hoshi had previously introduced her to My Little Pony – her favourite being Twilight Sparkle. Hayes's favourite was Applejack. The three of them had a few binge sessions and a very serious discussion about how to get Tucker to screen the movie for movie night.

Speaking of Tucker, he'd kept his promise to have Hayes join him and Malcolm in their little side project – optimizing the LR28s. It was pretty fun to gang up on Malcolm with him; he was so cute when he was pouting. He still hadn't told anyone else about the drinking and he doubted that he would ever have to courage to, really. But he was happy with how everything was going at the moment.

He was actually happy.

"Do we have to talk about it?"

Hayes was sitting opposite Phlox in the little room off sick bay, where he'd been seeing Phlox twice a week for the last two months. Every so often, Phlox brought up his injury and asked him if he wanted to talk about it, but so far Hayes had declined every time. The thought of talking about it made him want to scream, cry, or puke, or possibly a combination of all three.

"Of course not," Phlox replied breezily. "I just want to check in every now and again and see if that's changed."

Hayes bit his lower lip. "Do you think we should talk about it?" he asked eventually. But he knew the answer.

"I do as a matter of fact," Phlox told him softly. "It was a major life event; I don't imagine that it was easy to come to terms with."

They'd spent the last two months focusing on Hayes's self-esteem issues and a bit about how he felt let down by most of the people in his life. It had taken a while to get comfortable with Phlox, but he ended up telling him how abandoned he felt by his parents, and how controlling his grandparents and Quinn were. And how afraid he was of driving them away for good. Phlox had also warned him that it was going to be all too easy for him and Malcolm to develop a highly co-dependent relationship and that they would have to be careful when it came to that. He'd spoken to Malcolm about it; it was on their to do list.

"I don't know if I'm ready," Hayes admitted. He stared at his knees. He could feel his heart hammering against his chest. "It knocked me a lot more than I would have expected it to."

"We don't have to discuss anything that you're not comfortable with," Phlox said gently. He'd said that before. And Hayes could tell that he meant it. "After trauma what you feel can be hard to put into words; but in here you don't have to worry about being coherent or making any sense. That's what I'm here for – to help you make sense of things. Perhaps we can take small steps, hmm? What do you think?"

Hayes nodded, but then shrugged. "I don't even know what to start with it. It sucked; it really sucked. Apart from the pain, I half expected the Grim Reaper to appear around the corner and tell me that he'd made a mistake and needed to exchange me for the Captain." He looked up at Phlox from where he'd been talking to his knees. "That's crazy, right? That's not normal."

"Survivor's guilt is something very common," Phlox explained. "It's all a part of the grieving process. It's understandable, given your role in ship's security that you would feel it quite strongly."

Hayes thought about that for a moment. He could feel that annoying pressure building up behind his eyes again. "I've been having a lot of… _nightmares_ about getting shot. And about the people we lost." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I just don't get why I'm still here, and they're not; it doesn't seem fair, like the wrong person was spared. Why do I get to live? Why do I deserve to live any more than they do?"

They talked about it for the rest of that session. Phlox patiently listened to him ramble, and as predicted he didn't make a lot of sense at times, just saying anything he felt like. He went on, and on, about how he didn't understand how he was still alive and that he almost felt like he shouldn't be. He confessed that he felt like such a waste of space for not even being able to enjoy being alive at times, when they'd already lost so many people. Twenty-seven lives; twenty-seven people had been lost while they were in the Expanse, after Hayes had been assigned to Enterprise to help keep them safe, and here he was, almost giving them the finger by not even acting as if he was alive. Instead he almost drank himself to death, again, and spent months avoiding people who cared about him. Hell, he probably could have started dating Malcolm while on Earth if he'd just gotten his head out of his ass. Phlox told him that it would take quite some time, and possibly a few more conversations before Hayes could really process what had happened. He just had to be patient with himself.

Hayes was okay with that.

* * *

Mac ambushed him when he returned to the armoury after his session with Phlox. He'd actually gone back to his quarters for half an hour to settle himself – he'd finally talked the Captain down to only taking thirty minutes after each session – and he was still reeling a little from the heavy stuff they'd ended up discussing. He'd actually ended up crying, and wishing he could just go running to Malcolm. He wanted to be invisible when he went on duty, to give himself a minute to breath, but as soon as he set foot in the armoury, Mac just strode straight up to him, and asked for a word.

"We drew straws, and I won; or lost, depends on how you react to this."

"Okaaay…" Hayes said, looking at her in confusion. "Spit it out sergeant."

She hesitated before asking softly "Are you doing okay?"

Concern was etched into her features; Hayes glanced to the side, and saw Cole, Hamboyan, Chang, Tillens, and Ed off to the side, watching the conversation. None of them looked away when they saw Hayes had noticed them. Cole actually raised a hand, nervously waving.

"Honestly?"

She nodded.

"I'm actually, uh, I'm kind of struggling, a little bit…"

She listened, and then told him to let her know if he needed anything from her; they were all there for him; they knew he'd do the same for them.

Talking felt good.


	14. Epilogue

"No."

"Babe –"

"No."

"Malcolm –"

"This is not happening –"

"I'm putting it on –"

"This is stu-"

"It going on –"

"I don't want to –"

"We are watching –"

"No –"

"We are watching –"

"Over my dead body –"

"We are watching My Little Pony, and you are going to like it!"

Matthew raise his voice above Malcolm's, trying to fight back a laugh.

Malcolm glared at him out of the corner of his eye, attempting to stifle his own laughter. "I can't believe I'm dating a Brony."

"Would this have been a deal breaker?" Matthew asked, as he brought up the first episode of the cartoon on Malcolm's laptop and hit play.

"You are lucky I slept with you first; before I found out you're a Brony. Very lucky. It's all I'm saying."

Matthew thought back to that night; they hadn't slept together since, though they'd come close a few times. Malcolm was a lot more comfortable with his body now than when they'd first got together, but he was still very unsure of himself. He also had a tendency to just agree to whatever Matthew suggested, if Matthew himself seemed like he was getting a little bit too animated; it was a habit he'd developed thanks to his Uncle Archie, and he was working hard on breaking it. Matthew sometimes had to go out of his way to make him feel secure, and it was a little tiring at times but they were working on it. It didn't bug Matthew when he knew that it was because he was overreacting, or getting a little too snippy, he was doing a lot better on that front now anyways, but Malcolm often didn't recognise when Matthew was annoyed at something else and not him. And Matthew was working on not pulling a disappearing act when he felt like things were too much – or, at least just telling Malcolm he needed to take a breather and have some space. It did feel like an uphill battle at times.

But it was so worth it.

Matthew had never felt so understood in a relationship, or more in sync with anyone he'd ever been with; Malcolm had told him last week that he'd never felt safer or happier with himself. They both understood needing therapy and were more than happy to help the other one use the tools that Phlox was recommending. They just _got_ each other, in a way that neither could really describe.

Of course, it had been rough at times, especially finding out that Malcolm had been involved in that super shady Starfleet Intelligence organisation; Matthew hadn't known how to react to that. But he'd listened to Malcolm's explanation, and after thinking it over came to forgive him for betraying Phlox like he had. If the Doctor was happy enough to forgive him afterwards, Matthew came to the conclusion that he could as well. Malcolm had gotten out as soon as he could, he was loyal to Enterprise and Captain Archer; he had been so confused for those few days, and so hurt, but as Malcolm was standing in front of him, pleading with him to understand, he came to realise that things weren't so black and white. Following orders wasn't so black and white, and it had been one of the main reasons that Malcolm spoke up when he disagreed with something he was being ordered to do.

It was also the moment that Matthew realised that he loved him.

He loved him, and had told him. His heart skipped a beat when Malcolm said that he loved him too. They were already planning on visiting Matthew's family when they returned to Earth in a couple of weeks to see the treaty signing. Matthew was very nervous about that – he hadn't told his family that'd started drinking again, and he wasn't planning on telling them. But he'd have Malcolm with him; he knew he'd be fine.

Matthew started dancing and singing along to the opening theme of My Little Pony, to Malcolm's annoyance. He grinned cheekily at him, nudging him as he danced; Malcolm just groaned and rolled his eyes. They watched the first episode, Malcolm leaning back against Matthew as they lay on his bed, in the exact same positions as when they'd first watched Band of Brothers together. He had his arms tightly wrapped around the pineapple shaped pillow Matthew had given him for his birthday. As the credits rolled, Malcolm craned his neck to look up at Matthew, smiling softly, his eyes flicking to his lips. Matthew gently kissed him, with Malcolm shifting so that he could lie on top of him. The laptop lay to the side, forgotten.

They didn't watch the second episode.


End file.
